OH, GREAT! I DISCOVERED HOW TO CULTIVATE A FARMER IN 52 EASY STEPS

UNORTHODOX FARMING

BOOK TWO

BENJAMIN KEREI

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

Copyright © 2022 Benjamin Kerei

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

Prologue

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

Step 17

Step 18

Step 19

Step 20

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23

Step 24

Step 25

Step 26

Step 27

Step 28

Step 29

Step 30

Step 31

Step 32

Step 33

Step 34

Step 35

Step 36

Step 37

Step 38

Step 39

Step 40

Step 41

Step 42

Step 43

Step 44

Step 45

Step 46

Step 47

Step 48

Step 49

Step 50

Step 51

Step 52

Arnold’s Final Stats

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Author Aaron Hodges

Also by Benjamin Kerei

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank the world for not ending in the past year and a bit. I know it was close, but I greatly appreciate that it never happened. Good job, everybody. Second, I would like to thank you, the readers. Your enthusiasm for this genre and my first book has made my writing dream a reality. I can now write without worries, and this is a wonderful place to be in as a writer. Third, I would like to thank my Illustrator Luciano Fleitas for his work on the cover, Ellen Klowden for her work editing and proofing the novel, and Nikko for typesetting this into something visually awesome. Fourth, I would like to thank my beta readers who helped improved this novel immensely. Fifth, I would like to thank my family for all their help, support, and tolerance. Finally, I would like to thank my brother Caleb who let me bounce ideas off him and read every version of every draft that I made of this novel. I really appreciate your help, Caleb.

PREFACE

(Warning!) This series is a framed series, which means the prologue for this novel is written from the future. This series will not catch up. If you think that’s too much of a spoiler for you then skip the Prologue and begin the book from Step 1.

PROLOGUE

Quantifying a life in words is like describing your mother’s pecan pie with pictures. It doesn’t work. Important details are forever lost to the errors of translation. A master wordsmith can swaddle you with scents, sights, sensations, and sounds, blanketing you in a new world of experience, yet still fail to capture the vivid moment they envisioned. So perfection can’t be the goal, only enlightenment.

At least, that’s what I’m told.

The soft, blue leather pressed against my palm as I thumbed through the pages. Paper scraped against paper, filling my office with a librarian symphony as I studied the elegant calligraphy, trying to see if I’d conveyed my point, if I’d enlightened my reader.

The young man written in these pages wouldn’t recognise the handwriting that conveyed his tale. He’d assume a scribe had penned these words, spending painstaking hours over each and every page.

My handwriting was just one of many changes that had occurred over my lifetime. It wasn’t even one I’d noticed. It changed like the seconds on a clock, compiling into minutes and then hours. Only by looking back to where my hands once lay could I see the profound difference.

The Arnold Parker between these pages is a stranger to me now. He was rash, insecure, troubled by grief and worry, with little control over his emotions. He lied to himself and to others. He was a blind man, navigating a world of trouble. How he hadn’t died was something of a mystery. Men and women who took half these risks had lives that ended in tragedy more often than not.

My office door handle turned, rattling ever so slightly. My gaze snapped up, trained by a lifetime of poor decisions that ended in danger, instinctively assessing the room for threats. I could tell by the slow, careful motion that someone was up to no good. They were a sneaky individual bent on a dastardly scheme.

A smile tugged at my cheeks, threatening to ruin what little authority I could muster. Grandchildren are one of the greatest surprises in life. You love them with the intensity of your children, but you have a fraction of the worry, and even less of the work.

The door began to open, filling the room with what sounded like a joust between screaming children. A moment later, a small, angelic, brunette head poked through the gap, grinning at me with all the mischief that a six-year-old can muster. That little grin had driven a dozen people insane. Not intentionally, of course. My grandson Arthur was like many of the children of the modern world. He was blessed, an affliction his mother shared. Her natural charisma was over 500, and Arthur’s was higher.

He couldn’t help what he did to people.

And I couldn’t help feeling guilty about it. Arthur knew that, too. In fact, all my grandchildren did. My wife regularly told me they had me wrapped around their fingers, so they could manipulate me like a puppet.

Arthur crept into the room and gently closed the door so his grandmother wouldn’t hear us talking. The rambunctious cacophony coming from his cousins was clearly there to act as cover for his operation. He knew I was supposed to be working, and he knew his grandmother wouldn’t be happy if I was disturbed, so he had to make this quick.

But he was six.

And six-year-old boys are easily distracted. He ran across the room, circling my old, jade desk, and leapt, trying to jump-kick my shoulder. I gently caught him midair and redirected his momentum so that he passed in front of my body and landed on my lap.

He giggled, looking up at me. “Was I close?”

We’d played this game a hundred times. “So close.”

He held his finger and thumb half an inch apart. “Was I this close?”

“More like this close.” I took both his hands and stretched his arms as wide as they could go.

He stuck out his bottom lip, contemplating whether he wanted to be upset by my teasing, and then got distracted by the blue, leather-bound book on the desk beside him. He picked it up and started looking through, smudging the pages with sticky fingers. “What are you reading?”

“I’m not reading. I’m writing.”

“What are you writing?”

“My life.”

Arthur continued to flip through the pages faster, trying to reach the end. “You wrote all of this…about you?”

“I wrote all that about a song.”

Arthur's eyes lit up, somehow comprehending what I was talking about despite how vague I was being. When I say his eyes lit up, I mean that literally—his excitement made them glow.

He broke out in song, singing at the top of his lungs. “Arnold is a silly man who claims he is a farmer, but he never plants a crop, so I heavily doubt this farmer—”

My hand went to Arthur’s mouth, covering it and muffling the words. He didn’t stop singing, and I could feel him grinning. I had one rule. Only one rule. No singing “Silly Arnold.” It was a rule all my grandchildren broke as frequently as they could. They enjoyed aggravating me as much as my wife did.

I timed out the lyrics until he got to the last line of the chorus and removed my hand.

He belted out the words, “Silly Arnold, that’s not how you farm!” and then promptly erupted in a giggle fit.

I stared at him, trying to give the impression I was a seriously disgruntled adult. But hearing his good-natured amusement made that impossible. I began to chuckle. “Are you done?”

He giggled some more, but nodded.

“Good, now it’s time to leave. Grandpa needs to get back to work, or Grandma will cut off my grandpa privileges.”

He frowned at me. “What are grandpa privileges?”

“They are very special powers that grandmas give grandpas. Without them, I won’t be able to give you candy. I won’t be allowed to read you stories. I won’t be able to play board games with you. We won’t be allowed to go troll hunting.”

His mouth fell open. “She can do that?”

I nodded, like it was a fate worse than death. “That, and so much more. She’s a very scary person.”

Arthur reached up and patted me on the shoulder, then dropped his voice in a way that I was sure he felt was conspiratorial. “You just have to be sneaky. I’ll help you practice. Try to give me candy without anyone seeing.”

I was so proud of him. Getting candy from your grandparents was a time-honoured tradition, and doing it with flair was what every grandchild should try to achieve. He’d tried to make it sound like me giving him candy was him helping me. I mean, I saw through it, but then, he was only six.

I held my hand out, envisioning what I wanted, willing it into existence. A piece of toffee in a wax paper wrapper appeared on my palm in a flash of light. Intuitive use of the system had taken me years to learn and decades to master. Most didn’t bother. Most were idiots.

The merchant class was the best non-combat class for a warrior. The ability to summon additional weapons in combat meant you were never unarmed. And if your supply lines were cut, it didn’t matter, so long as you had money.

Most importantly, it made you the favourite grandpa, because you could literally pull candy out of thin air. No other grandpa could compete with that.

I tried to hand him the candy, but he didn’t take it.

He stared at me, disappointed, finally shook his head, and swiped it from my hand. “No, not like that; you’re meant to do it sneakily.” He sounded offended, like my lack of skill made me a terrible grandpa.

It was kind of adorable.

I started messing around, giving him candy in the least-stealthy ways I could think of. After the fifth attempt, when I made a piece appear in my mouth and dropped it into his hand, he realised I was playing, and giggled. I spent the next few minutes trying to come up with more and more obvious methods for trying to sneak someone candy, until his pockets were bulging and he could barely sit upright from laughing so hard.

“I’ve got it!” I declared. “I know the perfect way to sneak you candy. But you have to stand up and tuck in your shirt.”

Arthur frowned, but he stood up and tried to tuck in his shirt. He had a bit of trouble keeping the candy in his pockets, but he eventually got there.

I stood up next to him and placed my hand above his shirt collar. Then I summoned about a thousand blueberries wrapped in wax paper. I added a few that were chocolate and others that were fudge, but the majority of them were blueberries. They poured down the back of his shirt until he looked like a hunchback.

Watching his ecstatic excitement over his haul made me feel bad about making most of them blueberries, so I added a little more chocolate.

I moved to open the door for him, and started to chuckle softly, but thought better of it. Arthur wasn’t the only one afraid of getting in trouble with his grandma. So I smiled as I watched him waddle out into the hallway, ready to share his victory with his cousins.

I silently closed the door and returned to my desk. After reading through the smudged book, I accepted that what I’d written was close enough for my intentions. I wasn’t sure who would read it, but they’d understand what I was trying to convey. They might not see it perfectly, but they would be enlightened.

I placed it on the side of my desk, retrieved another identical blue leather tome from the cabinet, and sat down to continue. I picked up my favourite pen, smiled for a moment, and returned to my work.

The Second Chronicles of Arnold Parker, as told by me.

As I dwell in the chambers of my memories, walking among relics of my history, I see the silhouettes of my successes and failures laid bare before the ravages of time. Though none would count me among the antique members of the eleven kingdoms, I live on gifted time. While not even in my middle years, I have outlived the oldest members of my pre-incarnate life. So, by every measurement I was born to, I am ancient.

And I think of myself thus.

Why is that important, you might ask? It’s important because there was a period in my life when I was ignorant, when I couldn’t comprehend the slow strolling of centuries. When the weight of accumulated years hadn’t started resting around my ankles and I didn’t feel the burden dragging at my feet.

Progress is slow.

Yet destruction can take only a moment.

The adolescent dream of what the old have seen, craving unearned wisdom, while the old wish for the ignorance of youth.

The curse of longevity is to see successes become failures. It’s to witness children pursue their art, gain accolades among their peers, and find themselves in an early grave from drug abuse. It’s to help a young man who shows promise and energy in business, watch him succeed…and turn into a tyrant.

The anguish of longevity is to understand every misstep with an old man’s insight. It’s to see your failures as seeds you sowed, as weeds you watered, as poisoned fruit you laid on your table for those you care for to sup upon. It’s the pain of the enlightened ignorant, the nauseating reminder of the fog-covered path only a few feet away.

Then there is the wisdom of longevity. She is the warm, old teacher who takes you by the hand and drags you from your musings. She whacks your shoulders with the ruler of perspective and instructs you that our history is only there to teach us, the same as any other. To dwell upon it in pain is the prerogative of the lazy. It is the inaction of the stagnant who do not wish to grow.

Finally, the blessing of longevity is to see your failures become successes. It’s to see the extensive, broken road that came to an unfruitful end transform into the first step in a path to happiness.

The blessing and the anguish of longevity is hindsight.

Hindsight can show our flaws and the mistakes we let ourselves repeat. It can be our greatest teacher and our loudest critic. It can also change how we view our experiences. That is one of the most important aspects of hindsight.

Because how I became the man I am today is not an easy tale to tell. There is no single, defining moment I can point to, because progress is slow. It starts and it stops. And the paths we take that seem to go nowhere can, in hindsight, be among the most important aspects of our journey.

This story is not the journey of how I became the man that I am. It’s the story of my first step in that direction. And only hindsight lets me see this as anything but a failure.

So, I’ll take you back to the conversation that changed my life and allow you to watch the dominoes fall.

STEP 1

ADMITTING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM

I can remember every serious conversation I had with my parents, even before gaining a perfect memory, and they all started the same way. They might have ended differently, but the beginning was always the same. So, I recognised the tension in Ranic’s shoulders and the heaviness in the room as I entered his new office.

He hadn’t called me here to chat.

Ranic’s office was on the north side of the third floor of his house of scholars. Behind his desk sat a massive stained-glass window, depicting a farmer working in a field, turning over soil. The view overlooked the temple roof and village square, a scene too rustic for a building so grand. It was like putting a modern-day office building in the middle of a pioneer town. The few buildings that stuck out were Jeric’s manor, Redcliff’s house, and Adoya’s new house of scholars, which looked like a modern reinterpretation of a Gothic cathedral. Everything else looked like a Western film set.

Bookshelves covered the walls, but the building had leveled so abruptly that less than a tenth held actual books. Various knickknacks and small paintings of Ranic’s deceased children and grandchildren tried to fill up the empty space, but it wasn’t enough. There was a sterility to the room that reminded me of a mausoleum rather than an office. I was used to buildings having unique scents, a blend of paint, plaster, and other materials, but the room lacked that in the oddest way.

Ranic sat in his high-backed chair behind the elaborate, royal marble desk, watching me intently. He’d tried to tame his wild, silver hair by combing it back, and even straightened his worn, grey scholar’s robe, which gave him numerous magical buffs and made him look like a discount store Saruman/Doc Brown hybrid. This was more effort than I’d ever seen him put into his appearance.

A sad smile touched Ranic’s face as I sat down. “Arnold, it’s not my place to say this to you. It should be a member of your family, someone who has walked the path that you now tread.” His voice was solemn, without its usual energy. “But you don’t have that option. You are alone in our world. So, would you humour an old man and let me treat you like family, instead of my employer?”

I tried to lighten the mood. “You’re going to do it even if I say no, so you might as well go ahead.” The Texas twang was still present in my accent despite years of being in this new world.

“True.” The sad smile didn’t change, but the tension in his shoulders relaxed. His pale, blue eyes roamed his office for a few seconds before returning to me. “Do you know why I approached Jeric about building this house of scholars?”

“No. I never asked. It seemed private.”

“It’s because I would like to one day be a farmer. And if a master scholar oversees a house of scholars that specialises in their field from the time it is built until the time it reaches level ten and becomes a stable magical building, then that scholar meets the requirements for passing through their fourth threshold and receives a second class.”

That wasn’t a great revelation. The old man loved farming. So it made sense that he’d want to be a farmer.

“Usually, this method for passing through a threshold takes a century. During that time, the village must level up and become a town. The industrial growth in that town must be substantial enough that the house of scholars can gain the experience necessary for it to meet its leveling requirements. It is a lifelong plan that a young scholar must commit to if they ever hope to see a successful end. However, that is the usual method…and the usual has never applied to you, nor to anything around you. If it did, I never would have asked Jeric to let me build this place. I am far too old to set out on a path so long and arduous. Now, having explained why I want this building, do you know why I want to become a farmer?”

I shrugged. “I assume it’s because you love farming.”

“I do. But as a farmer scholar, there is nothing stopping me from farming, Arnold. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life on a farm tending to the crops I love, I could do so already. In fact, I did. I spent two decades enjoying that lifestyle, trying to unlock new promotions and methods for passing through a threshold. Though that time never bore fruit, I don’t regret it. So I’ll ask you again; why do you think I want to become a farmer?”

I frowned, leaning back into the chair. We’d never had that conversation. “I don’t know.”

“The reason I want to become a farmer, the reason I have spent more than a century learning what that involves, the reason I can continue facing each new day after outliving the woman I love, the children I raised with her, and many of my grandchildren who I once bounced on my knee only to one day bury, is because I believe it is a truly horrible class to be born into. It has always been my hope that if I became a farmer, I will have the knowledge and ability to make discoveries that might improve their situation. That is why I’ve pushed myself for more than a century. That is why I get up in the morning. I hope to one day make farmers’ lives better. So you honestly do not know how much joy it brings me to live in Blackwood and witness you doing the very thing I’ve been trying to do all my life, or how much it pains me to ask you to stop.”

While I had no idea where this conversation was going to lead when I sat down, I never would have guessed Ranic would ask me to stop helping people. “What?”

“Arnold, you have been running from crazy idea to crazy idea ever since I met you, because you found yourself stuck in a class you hate and so have done everything you could to get out of that situation, creating a truly wonderful and unorthodox method for gaining farmer experience. You have spent the last six months so immersed in charging towards a living catastrophe, trying to mitigate the damage it might cause, that I don’t think you have noticed the fact that you have gained a second class.”

Had Ranic had a stroke? “Are you all right? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Ranic snorted, rolling his eyes as he reached across the desk and lowered my hand. “I haven’t lost my mental faculties, Arnold. I am speaking abstractly. Getting a second class is now a foregone conclusion for you. Barring death, and with enough time, there is no situation where you don’t gain access to one. It is inevitable. But you’ve been running around so hectically since capturing the giant that you haven’t sat down and accepted this. You’re still taking actions like you’re not sure what will happen next.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just what I said. You are making plans that don’t take into account what will happen when you are no longer a farmer. Your plan for gaining noble experience for Emily and farm workers for your farm is as righteous as it is devious, but it doesn’t take into account the cost to you. While helping these people is admirable, I don’t believe it is what you want.”

My charisma was now high enough to keep my anger and annoyance in check. I didn’t feel the compulsion to fly off the rails, swayed by emotions I couldn’t control. The second they appeared, I squashed them—even when someone said something I felt was pretty insulting. “I’m not a complete asshole, Ranic.”

“I didn’t say you were. What I am trying to say is I don’t think you comprehend where you’re standing. You are at the beginning of the rest of your life, and because of what you have done and what you have created, you stand at the threshold of a life filled with unlimited possibilities. If you want to be a merchant, you can be a successful merchant, having a business empire that stretches the entire kingdom. If you want to be a blacksmith, you will have access to the best education, the greatest tools, and the finest materials. If you want to be a warrior, you can receive the greatest training and the highest quality of equipment. If you decide to become an adventurer, you will have access to more resources than even the wealthiest noble children. And if you decide to become a farm manager, you will have the highest-level farmers of any farm in the kingdom. As I said, you stand at the threshold of unlimited possibilities, with a lifespan ahead of you that is several times the length of the oldest individuals of your previous world. I have only recently realised that you have no idea what that means. You’ve started walking down a path you’ve blindly chosen for yourself as a reaction to the pressure the world has put on you, but you need not accept it.”

I took a slow breath, trying to grasp what he was saying. I couldn’t, so I spoke as truthfully as I could. Trying to convey how I felt. “I’m not being pushed into anything, Ranic.”

Ranic folded his arms and stared at me. “You don’t behave like a man who is here by choice. Even though you have the ability to walk away from all of this.”

A little exasperation managed to find its way through my emotional control. “Ranic, the regent is still trying to crush us. And the giant being trapped outside the village is nearly as problematic as when it was wandering in the forest. We’ve only just finished rebuilding all the automated barns, and they are only working at half their lethality. We had to use them again last night to kill a few wolves.”

Ranic sighed and shook his head. “Those are burdens you’re now choosing to carry. The money you can earn from selling all the farmer experience you received can easily pay back the loan to Beldose, with enough left over to buy a smaller farm in the southern lands where the regent can’t touch you. I can get you through your third and fourth thresholds without any hassle or stress. As for your trap method and the land you own in Blackwood, you could easily hand it over to the crown for free and leave it to others to worry about. Slowly selling off the experience you have acquired will leave you wealthier than most can dream. The loss of experience for Emily from not pursuing your new plan will be a blow, but you owe her nothing. You have already helped her more than she could have ever hoped for.”

“You can’t be…” I started, but then what Ranic was saying finally sunk in. I had been so entrenched in running from fire to fire, putting them out and accidentally starting new ones, that I hadn’t realised I had reached a point where I had the option to stop without things getting out of control and me losing everything. He was right. I was still acting like all this needed to happen, when it didn’t. “What about the farmers who can’t gain levels?”

Ranic shrugged. “Their circumstances aren’t your fault.”

He was right again. So much had happened so quickly that I hadn’t sat down and considered how much had changed. I was still thinking about my future from the place where we had been months ago. I didn’t need to be. There were more options for me now. That honestly floored me. I sat there thinking about what he’d said, trying to get my head around the situation I was in, not the situation I thought I was in.

My gaze travelled around the barely furnished office, taking in the details. This place existed in its current form because of what I’d done. What I created. But that didn’t mean I needed to stay and see it grow.

“So, I can just walk away,” I said, eventually.

“Yes.”

“Then why does it feel like I’d be failing?” There was a gnawing feeling in my gut at the idea.

“Because you have the option of doing something wonderful for a lot of people, and you now have the charisma and money required to weather the stress involved with seeing it through. You know you would be choosing to turn your back on people with no other option when you are perfectly capable of helping them. The reason I brought this up was because you needed to know that if you choose to help them, you’re choosing to do so because that is what you want to have happen, not something that is happening because it has to.”

I paused. That didn’t sound right. “There has to be more than that to this conversation.”

“There is. This conversation is about what you want from a life with unlimited possibilities. A life where you can go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. You have spent so much time trying not to be a farmer, but do you even know what class you will choose when the option is available?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. A dozen different classes rushed through my head, but none of them stuck out to me. None of them said, “This is your future!” I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to be anymore.

“I thought so,” Ranic said, seeing me freeze. “Salem tells me you were excited when you found out our world had classes, but that the excitement waned the longer you were here. What did you want to be when you arrived?”

I dropped my gaze, because of how childish my answer was. “I wanted to be a warrior.” I was embarrassed by the answer, but my high charisma let me be truthful, whereas in the past I would have tried to dodge the question, covering up that embarrassment.

“Why?”

“I thought it would be awesome. I wanted to be like the heroes in the books I read when I was growing up.”

“But then you realised what sort of violence that life involved.”

I nodded.

“What else did you consider?”

“My world had no magic, only fantastic stories filled with it, so the idea of being a wizard appealed to me. The idea of being able to throw lightning or fire still fills me with wonder, but the purpose of that power is no different from swinging a sword. And the idea of studying for several decades just to do that much isn’t that interesting to me, even though I know there is more to it than that.”

“Violence in the defence of others is an honourable life, but it sounds to me like that is not why you considered those classes. I think you liked them because they sounded, ‘cool,’ as you say. And once you realised what those classes were like, you felt they were not for you.”

I nodded.

“So, it’s as I suspected. You need to find what you want from life, because until you know that, you cannot take advantage of the opportunities life presents you.”

“What if there is no class that suits me?”

“Then ignore classes. You have the kind of wealth that makes pursuing a class unnecessary. You could spend your days reading or travelling the eleven kingdoms. No one can force you down a path you don’t choose, and that is a fact.”

Ranic somehow noticed my scepticism.

“I can see you don’t believe me, and that is likely because you are caught up in a lie. It’s a lie we tell ourselves that says we must walk the path of greatness when the opportunity presents itself. But we don’t have to if we don’t want to. I could have amassed ten times the wealth that I have, but I chose not to, because the pursuit of that wealth would have required me to walk a path that held no interest to me. You have more options than I ever had, so that means you have more options to turn down.”

“Can’t I pursue them all?”

“You risk becoming a man of many classes and a master of none. But then there are some who do not care. The chance to chase everything is too appealing, and the idea of mediocrity in all they do does not upset them. But I don’t believe that will make you happy. And that is what this conversation is about.”

That surprised me. “This conversation is about me being happy?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because as I said, you are at the beginning of a very long life, and you don’t understand what that means. If we do nothing to stop them, our character flaws grow as we age. If those flaws are small to begin with, we can reach the end of our first century without any significant signs, but the second century is lonelier than the first, and the third even lonelier than that. Failures and missed opportunities follow you through your days, and you will look back with mounting regret, allowing those flaws to grow. High attributes help, but the human mind can only take so much, and those flaws might eventually consume you.”

Ranic’s sad smile was replaced by a bitter, sullen expression.

Ranic was trying to convey something I had little understanding of. Back home, people rarely lived to one hundred. My grandmother had been a member of a small book club since her 20’s. The dozen women in her book club were her friends, but by the time she was sixty-five, only ten of them were left. On her eightieth birthday, only six of them showed up. I’d sat in the corner of her living room and listened as they shared stories about the other women who weren’t there. There had been genuine amusement as they reminisced, but it was all tinged with sadness, a longing for a connection that could never be reconnected.

How much worse would that feeling be when there was no one left, as the decades passed and you looked around only to realise that no one but you remembered shared times and happiness? A tear began to roll down my cheek. It would be like coming to this world all over again.

I wiped my face, brushing away the tears.

Ranic’s sad smile returned. “You need to start looking for a goal, Arnold. Something you can spend your life pursuing that you probably won’t ever reach, but the pursuit of it is still worthwhile because coming up short still brings value. The goal needs to bring you happiness and give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning and take care of yourself. That goal needs to connect you to the world around you. It needs to enrich your life and others’. If you don’t have a goal, the centuries can crush you, grinding you down into an unrecognisable mess.”

“Do you have any advice?”

“Yes: Get to know yourself better. Passing 100 charisma has irrevocably changed you, allowing you to view the world differently from most. The rush of indomitability you feel now, that made you excited to let that giant chase you, will continue to weaken over the next few weeks, influencing your actions and thoughts less and less. Soon you will see the changes that have occurred more clearly, allowing you to separate yourself from your emotions. Over the next few years, it will give you deeper insights into who you are and what you want.”

“I don’t have the luxury of waiting that long.”

“You do if you choose to walk away. And that is an option you have before you. An option I want you to consider.”

“Why?”

“Because helping these people and intertwining yourself with Blackwood further may not be in your best interests. You will be walking down a path that will bring you into direct conflict with the regent. You will be walking down a path where thousands will depend on you. Quite frankly, you will be walking down a path that requires you to take farming seriously. If you want to do right by these farmers and give them a chance at a better future, you will need to spend months, even as much as a year working with me, to gain access to the advanced farming promotions necessary to help those under you excel.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” This was more than just a simple question. Ranic was an excellent judge of character and a person’s capabilities. If he said I couldn’t do it, I likely couldn’t.

“Before your charisma reached 100, I would have said no. Now that it has, you have the drive to make yourself do anything you set your mind to without the fear of procrastination and half-hearted attempts. However, the ability to do something and enjoying the process are two entirely distinct realities. You’re about to walk down a path at which you will probably succeed, but from which you will likely receive no enjoyment. It is a path of misery. A path many in your position find themselves on without realising it, and a path which many keep walking without realising, making the same mistake over and over again. The ability to pursue any course of action does not necessarily lead to a good life. Pel doesn’t like to harm animals or eat their flesh, but with your charisma she could make herself do both all day every day, never wavering. She would be miserable every moment of it but would never be stopped by that misery. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“I think so. You are saying that the ability charisma gives us to do anything is a lie. It is a lie that says that because we can do it, we’re not being harmed by it. You’re afraid that because I know I can make myself do what I need to do, I am confusing it with the idea that I actually want to do this.”

The sadness left Ranic’s smile for the first time. “Exactly.”

“I want to help these farmers if I can. I want to give them the chance no one else is able to.”

“You can do so without being a martyr. You have far more options than you realise. It might take a little longer, but you could give some of these farmers a place to work elsewhere, by making the same offer you made to Jeric’s family to another noble. There isn’t a noble in the kingdom that would turn down what you want to do for Emily.”

He was right. I had spent so much time and effort investing in Blackwood that I hadn’t considered all my options properly. Almost everything I had built here could be picked up and moved somewhere else. It would be the easiest way to get out from under the regent’s thumb. It would sort out my biggest problem. And Blackwood had been dying since it was founded. It wasn’t my responsibility to change that. I didn’t even like country living.

The only thing it had going for it was that this was the place where I felt I could do the most good. This was where I could let my imagination run free and incorporate everything I’d learned from my old world into my new one. Nowhere else would let me do what I had done here. I didn’t know that for certain, but my relationship with Jeric and his family was not something I could pick up and move. I would have to start from scratch and hope people trusted me. Now that the giant was trapped, I had so many ideas I wanted to explore, so much I wanted to share. But would someone else let me do it? Would they support me or get in my way?

But Ranic was right. Doing it here would be harder than it needed to be. The process of helping these people was not going to be something that brought me joy, no matter how much I wanted it to. It was simply the right thing to do. Something my parents would be proud of. But I could walk away if I wanted to.

I didn’t want to, though.

The people I wanted to help were people who wanted to be farmers. They were people screwed over by a system that didn’t care about them. If I didn’t do this, then who would? Yes, I could go somewhere else, but that would limit the number of people I could help. Blackwood was ready for this. Other places weren’t.

I sighed, feeling the stress of the conversation, despite my charisma. This was a lot to take in. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Ranic scowled, suddenly angry. “That sounds like a saying from your world that isn’t true.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. “You did not just say that.”

“I did.”

“Do you even know what it means?”

Ranic lost his scowl. “Do you? Because that quote sounds like an ideal. An idea that those with great power should act responsibly. An idea that those with great wealth and power should use it for the betterment of others. Trying to live by an ideal that doesn’t come from within can destroy you, because an ideal doesn’t leave room for weakness, doubt, or a path that leads in another direction. Wealth and power give you options. Many of those options come with responsibility and can help or harm others, but many of those options are not suited to you.”

“I want to help these people, Ranic,” I repeated, more firmly. “And I want to help them here in Blackwood. It’s where I think I can make the biggest difference.”

He nodded. “I agree with you on that. Helping people here in Blackwood will let you be at least twice as effective. However, helping people here might tie up your actions and wealth for the next few decades. You might end up having to fight the regent every step of the way.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly. This might not be a short-term commitment. But it also might not be something you have to worry about in a few years. I don’t know what the future holds for you, and I am not wise enough to guess. What I do know is I don’t want to see you trapped in a life that brings you nothing but misery because no one pointed out you had other options.”

I finally understood why we were having this conversation. Ranic wanted me to go forward fully informed and aware that I was there by choice, not by circumstance, like I had been these past months.

I felt myself relax. “If we were only talking about a few people, I’d consider what you’re saying more, but we’re talking about thousands of people if our plan works. If I choose to take the easy path instead, I will regret it for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t doubt you would.”

I smiled, grateful for what he had done. “But if it all turns to custard, at least now I know it was by choice, not by fate or circumstance. These problems are something I’ve chosen to tackle, not something I had to do because I had no other option.”

STEP 2

ARTICULATING THE PROBLEM

Nobleman Jeric, Carpenter Kiln, Blacksmith Ava, and I stood at the top of Arnold’s Hill, looking out over the village, discussing Blackwood’s future. Wind rushed through my hair, reminding me I needed a haircut and drawing my attention away from the conversation. The breeze up here was a little stronger than the one I normally experienced at ground level, so it was surprisingly cool, despite the clear, blue skies and the sun beating down. It was a comfortable place to hold a meeting and, most likely, a comfortable place to live. The view was certainly growing on me, even if the name wasn’t.

The only downside to the location was that I’d had to lug a table all the way out here from Ranic’s house of scholars at Jeric’s request. He’d said it was necessary for the meeting, but so far all he’d used it for was to hold a hastily traced map of Blackwood.

I was ready to go wide with my method for monster trapping, but the kingdom of Radian didn’t have somewhere devoted to making trap equipment on the scale I needed. The Weldon smithies were barely able to find the free time to supply Blackwood with their busy schedule, and I would need somewhere that could supply significantly more than what Blackwood needed.

So I was going to build it.

But like my farm, certain aspects wouldn’t work unless the system requirements were met. Try to build a lumbermill too far from a forest and the wood it produced wouldn’t integrate into the systems. Try to build a foundry outside a commercial zone and the same thing happened with the metals.

It was exasperating.

Frustrated, loud grunts came from the reservoir, echoing off the walls, as the giant tried to escape, scrambling up with everything it had. It would occasionally get high enough up the western side for us to see a hand, but it was still far from reaching the top. All the dead monsters we’d fed it had increased its weight and limited how high it could reach.

It was something for which I was thankful.

There were many things for which I wasn’t.

Beldose’s arrival had accelerated my plans in a way I wasn’t ready for. Most of what I laid out for him hadn’t been put into motion yet, so now we needed to quickly put together a proposal for him. Kiln and Ava were not the sort of advisors I needed for the scope of this project, but they had basic academy training and were all I had access to for the moment.

Ava rolled her eyes at me while she pointed at the map, drawing my attention back to the conversation. “Arnold, darling, just because you can build a foundry capable of forging your swinging axes inside of Blackwood’s commercial zone doesn’t mean you have enough space to start an industry the size of what you’ve talked about.”

Ava’s dark-brown hair held more grey than when I’d met her, and stress lines crinkled the edges of her eyes. These changes weren’t because of her six adopted children. They had come as a result of the giant. Despite that, she was the same cheerful wall of personality I’d met back when I was delusional enough to think I could level by killing monsters.

“Why not? The foundry in Weldon can turn them out reasonably quickly when they get around to it.”

“I don’t doubt they can, but do you have any idea of the scale that you want to build? You’ve already said you want to double the number of your automated barns, and add more of those axe monstrosities to them, which means you need more than twice as many for a village the size of Blackwood. How long would it take one of those foundries to outfit Blackwood with that many barns?”

I turned to Jeric for the answer, since I didn’t know it off-hand.

“Three months,” he estimated.

Unlike Ava, Jeric looked younger than when I met him, almost as young as I did, even though he had gained a few pounds recently, losing his highly-toned physique. Isabelle’s return had made him more indulgent; most evenings the two of them could be seen on their balcony overlooking the village square, eating treats and drinking wine as they made up for all the years they had spent apart. His light-brown hair, which had been cut in a military style when I met him, was now a more fashionable, long cut, a minor change entirely there to please her. I’d caught him smiling as she ran her fingers through it on more than one occasion.

“That’s too long,” I admitted. “What do we need to produce that every week?”

Ava’s eyebrows rose. “Well, aren’t we aiming high. To do all that in a week would require six foundries the size of what you propose, or four slightly larger ones.”

Jeric shook his head. “That won’t fit in the village.”

“I’m far from done,” Ava said, trying and failing not to laugh at my surprise. “I’ve made or repaired enough of the components for your barns to know you need at least a dozen large smithies on top of these foundries. And with those sorts of buildings, you need warehouses and supply buildings to support them.”

Kiln grunted and scratched the back of his head, loosening stray sawdust from his blond mop. Kiln’s easy-going disposition hadn’t changed, even with the threat of the giant. We’d spent a fair bit of time together because of my board games, and while I liked the guy, he wasn’t the best person to ask for something like this…though he wasn’t the worst, either.

“If you want to build that fast, you’ll need a decent-sized carpentry workshop,” he explained. “That much dry wood takes up space, so you will have the same storage problem as the foundries.”

I scratched my chin, feeling too much growth, reminding me I needed to shave. “So, what you’re saying is it’s impossible to fit it all inside Blackwood?”

They both nodded.

Jeric smirked at me. “I told you.”

“I’m sorry if I want a second opinion when something requires that much money,” I replied sarcastically.

“And yet you look surprised that it was the same one I gave you.” Jeric chuckled and started marking the map, drawing a three-by-three grid with Blackwood at the centre. “Arnold’s going to pay for the commercial zone to be expanded. How much space do you think you will need?”

Kiln seemed surprised by the statement. “I thought only towns could do that.”

Jeric shook his head as he leaned over the table. “That’s a common misconception. Only towns can usually afford to purchase the upgrade, so you rarely see villages with it, unless someone like Arnold offers to purchase it for the village.”

“Doesn’t that increase the cost of a town becoming a city?”

I nearly groaned. That was exactly why we were having this meeting. The price was enough to make me choke. “Not just when towns become cities; it’s also going to increase the cost of Blackwood becoming a town from a village. And Isabelle’s making me front that cost, too. That’s why I was trying to see if we could do this without having to resort to purchasing the expansion.”

Ava started coughing, quickly covering her mouth as she regained control, and turned to me. “You can afford that?”

I nodded.

She dropped her hand and smirked before stepping closer to intertwine my arm with hers, locking us together. “My eldest is looking for a man, and she’s mentioned how handsome you are several times. I would make a wonderful mother-in-law.”

I did my best not to scowl. “Isn’t Lenlin courting her?”

“Minds can be changed. It’s not so difficult.”

Ava wasn’t joking. And I knew her well enough to know that once she set her mind to something, there were few things that would stop her. Her eldest daughter was only Emily’s age, and I wasn’t about to start dating an eighteen-year-old, even if it was socially acceptable here. I was closer to thirty than twenty.

If my charisma weren’t so high, I might have said something I would’ve regretted. Instead, my mind searched for a way out of the problem. It found one. This was supposed to be a secret, but I needed to distract Ava before she fully set her sights on me courting her daughter. “I’m surprised you would discourage her from courting someone so wealthy.”

Ava frowned up at me. “I don’t follow, darling?”

“I’ve given Lenlin permission to sell one of his experience crystals. He will be worth several thousand crowns in a few months.”

Ava seemed to think about that for several seconds. I knew she and her husband liked Lenlin and were actively encouraging the two to date. And several thousand crowns was an absurd amount of money. Not the kind of money you needed to start a new industry, but enough that you would never want for anything in life.

Ava unlocked our arms and patted my shoulder. “You’re a good man, Arnold. You know exactly how to remind me of what’s important. It’s a shame I won’t call you, ‘Son’.”

I smiled, happy the crisis was averted. “So, how much space do you think the foundries will need?”

Ava walked over to the map and placed her calloused hands on her hips. “How much room will expanding the commercial zone give us?”

Jeric grinned, savouring the boon he had gained for the village. “Arnold’s paying for a full expansion, so it will give us eight times more than what currently exists, roughly the size of an unexpanded town.”

Ava looked at me again, seeming to think over her decision, and then turned back to the map, deciding she still preferred Lenlin. “To do it properly would require an area half-again as large as Blackwood.”

“Where would you suggest it go?”

Ava glanced at Kiln and then looked out over Blackwood. It was easy to see every detail of the small, rustic village from here. If you looked the other way, you would see all the work Brek and his team were doing to refit the barns.

“The southwestern side would be the best place. Kiln will need his carpentry workshop close to the forest, and everything is being exported out of Blackwood, so there is little point building it farther from the road to Brinkdale.”

Jeric made a note on the map. “Kiln, how much space will your workshop need?”

Kiln shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure. Arnold wants me to make more of his games and something he calls ‘IKEA-style’ furniture. If we were only making items for his traps, I’d say a space half the size of Blackwood to keep up with the foundries, but with everything else we’ve talked about, we might need facilities that are just as large. But you should really talk to someone who knows more about this sort of thing.”

“We will,” Jeric said as he made a note and looked over at me. “We are going to need to talk to Ranic and Adoya again. This is a lot bigger than we imagined.”

STEP 3

INVESTING IN GOOD HELP

I was planning to head south in the morning, tagging along with Isabelle and Emily, who were hoping to relocate the abundance of under-leveled, unemployable farmers they had down there in exchange for noble experience. Beldose, my bank manager, had argued against my involvement. In his mind, I was just a glorified investor, which meant Isabelle should be able to handle it without me.

Isabelle didn’t feel that way.

It wasn’t because this was my plan, nor because I was bankrolling the enterprise with my farmer experience. It was because these nobles needed to see who they were dealing with. They needed to take my measure. They might have a problem on their hands, but the majority of them wouldn’t push these farmers out the door just because they were in the way. They needed to be sure they were going somewhere better, because that’s who nobles were.

I could appreciate that and understand it.

But it frustrated Beldose.

He adamantly believed I needed to stay in Blackwood. Getting the builder’s guild to return and start construction was a hard sell with Blackwood’s hostile environment. Money might not convince them. But my incarnate title made me 500% more interesting, so doors that were closed to others would open for me.

He was certain it couldn’t be done without me. And Isabelle and I were looking at months of work, months away from Blackwood. Months in which he felt nothing would progress.

Jeric disagreed with Beldose’s assessment and felt confident he could manage without me. His dismissal as mayor made him a poor advocate when presenting our offer to the other nobles, so he’d asked to stay behind to manage Blackwood. I was grateful he offered. It saved me having to ask him, which I hadn’t wanted to do. He’d already spent enough time away from his family. I didn’t want to be the person who asked him to spend more.

You didn’t do that to a friend.

With Jeric in charge, Blackwood was ready for our departure tomorrow morning. So, I felt more than a little frustrated that it was late afternoon and I still hadn’t come to an agreement with Beldose.

My entire inner circle sat shoulder to shoulder around Emily’s parlour table. They wore a mixture of uncomfortable expressions, but they didn’t complain. And only Quilly went so far as to glare at me. Refreshments sat against the wall, eaten and replaced several times over the extended meeting.

Seven bodies in a small room for this long meant the temperature was far above comfortable, but we couldn’t open the doors without losing the anti-scrying effects of the quiet room.

Beldose stopped playing with his large, black moustache and folded his arms. His suit was freshly cleaned and pressed, making him look like a king among paupers. His anger had faded, but he was doing everything he could to feel like an intimidating presence.

He knew it wasn’t working. It’s hard to intimidate people who have not only lived under the threat of a giant, but captured one.

Still, he hadn’t given up trying, and we’d been negotiating for three days.

The plans I’d started with Ava and Kiln had been taken to Adoya, Ranic, and Brek, who expanded our proposal. We needed more than just somewhere to build traps. We needed somewhere to educate the new farmers and those that would eventually operate my traps. We needed places to house people, space for my research and development projects, and all the other amenities a town-sized industry needed. Blackwood currently possessed none of that.

And Beldose was entirely true to his word that he didn’t trust me. He needed to not only know everything I was doing, but understand it. We couldn’t give half-answers. Everything had to be explained in painful detail. And he took pride in pointing out wherever I couldn’t answer his questions. I was used to making plans up as I went along. Beldose wouldn’t let me operate that way anymore.

The map on the table showed how we planned to expand Blackwood. To start that process, I was going to need another loan, one that was nearly as big as the first one.

Beldose sighed and pointed to the three-by-three square grid Jeric had drawn. “I’ve listened to your arguments and made my decision. I’m willing to loan you the money for the expansion of Blackwood, along with the infrastructure and labour costs for the trapsmith industry and education, and the three areas you’ve set aside for housing, but I won’t loan you the money for the research and development. There’s too much risk at this point. And that’s non-negotiable.”

Everyone at the table released a sigh of relief. Not because he’d agreed, but because they wouldn’t have to spend any longer cramped inside the parlour. Quilly immediately headed for the door, squeezing past everyone, not bothering to say goodbye. Adoya was polite enough to ask if we needed her any longer and then also exited. With two fewer bodies and a small burst of fresh air, the room was nearly tolerable.

Beldose waited for the doors to close. “Even though my bank won’t fund your research and development projects, Arnold, I’d like to encourage you to do so yourself. Some of the ideas you’ve shared with me are fascinating, and if you can make them work, then Blackwood will be known for several industries in the future.”

I waved away his concern. “I’m still planning to go ahead with it. I only wanted the loan because it would let me tackle more projects at once.”

Bringing technology from back home could make an enormous difference, and it wasn’t until my recent memory upgrade and having several months to go through it all that I realised how much I could actually bring. There were hundreds of small changes that would make massive differences. It was honestly surprising how many things I’d learnt and forgotten over my lifetime. My education had been more thorough than I’d thought.

Beldose smiled. “Good. In that case, I would like to review the promotion path for your class. Have you come to a final agreement?”

I pulled a piece of paper from the file in front of me and handed it to him.

Promotions, unlike thresholds, weren’t something you needed to choose the moment you gained access, but I’d already obtained the increased yield promotions for crops and livestock. There were no advanced versions of the promotions, at least none that anyone had discovered. And Ranic didn’t think I had the skills to pursue the advanced version of the increased quality promotions, even if I’d been willing to sacrifice a decade, so there had been no reason to wait.

Ranic chuckled as I handed the list over. “I finally convinced him to chase the Discerning Eye path last night.”

Beldose reached for his glass of water as he read the list. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know that path.”

“It’s a series of special promotions that are available from levels 10 through 40. They’re an upgrade to the standard interface that farmers receive. By themselves they are mediocre, but in conjunction with a farmer house of scholars which gives a similar benefit, they have a substantial effect on crop quality. They also allow you to know which of your workers are performing to standard at a single glance.”

Beldose put down his water and pulled out a small notebook, a pen, and a bottle of ink. “The timeframe on acquisition?”

Ranic saw me scowl and chuckled harder. “Roughly a year. Arnold knows very little about farming, so I’ll have to teach him from scratch.”

Beldose nodded, scribbling it down. “That just leaves our disagreement over his 9th promotion.”

Ranic nodded as well. “Arnold is quite adamant about this. He wishes to take the Farmer’s Rest promotion.”

I folded my arms and set my jaw. I was willing to die on this hill. Ranic had agreed to back me up so long as I took the Discerning Eye path.

Beldose sighed. “I was hoping you’d reconsider.”

I firmly shook my head. “Look, if you’re the type of person who goes to bed each night and immediately falls asleep and wakes up refreshed, then taking a promotion that only does that might seem stupid to you. But I have wasted so much time staring at my ceiling, reimagining past conversations, making up comebacks that are snarky one-liners no one will ever hear, and planning what I’d do in a zombie outbreak that I need to take it. It will make me so much more productive.”

Beldose frowned at me. “Planning for a zombie outbreak isn’t a waste of time. I’ve already planned my route to the temple, along with how I will reinforce the entrance when I get there. The boarded-up windows make it a safe fallback point. No one in this village knows me well enough, so making my way to the vaults would be entirely pointless.”

“Entirely pointless,” Ranic confirmed. “If there were a zombie outbreak, I wouldn’t open my vault for anyone outside my staff. Everyone lies about being infected. To ask another to open their door for you is the epitome of self-centredness.”

Jeric shook his head. “Everyone wants to live, but I understand the mentality. My wife and I have only recently agreed we’d open our vault door for Arnold if he showed up. He’d have to strip and submit himself for a full-body inspection, but we’d let him in.”

Beldose and Ranic both looked shocked. “You’re loyal friends,” they said.

My mouth was open as I watched the conversation. I’d read every single book that Melgrim’s Adventurers’ Guild would sell me on monsters, and not one of them had mentioned zombies. I’d checked. Twice. But they were talking about it like it was reality and not fiction.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I was willing to take on a lot, but not zombies. They freaked me out. “Are you joking?”

Beldose shook his head. “No one jokes about zombies.”

I got a hold of myself and looked down at my translation ring. I’d only run into a few instances where it had steered me wrong, but it had happened. I described a zombie in detail—thinking maybe the word didn’t mean the same thing to them.

“Yes, that’s them,” Isabelle said. “Though they aren’t dead. If you can call their existence living.”

I swallowed again. “They’re not in any of the monster books.”

“They aren’t monsters,” Beldose said. “It’s some sort of sickness of the brain. Highly infectious and contagious, and the only known cure is death.”

“They can become monsters, though,” Ranic said, “if they kill enough to go feral.”

Everyone at the table shuddered.

I looked at everyone. “What happens if they go feral?”

They all shuddered again.

Our conversation took a strange turn, where we ended up talking about the genuine threat of zombies for more than an hour. When they realised I hadn’t known zombies were an actual threat, they started educating me. They weren’t satisfied with my plan of going to a barn and pulling up the ladder. Apparently, zombies could be smart. Not making-fully-conscious-decisions smart, but smart enough that they could climb and open doors. The basic rule of thumb was if the smartest dog could do it, a zombie might be able to do it.

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping with the window open again,” I said.

“That is precisely why we have shutters,” Isabelle revealed. “What did you think they were for?”

“Rain.”

She shook her head. “Sometimes I worry about you.”

Beldose eventually brought the conversation back to where it started. “For what I understand, Arnold, your class’s ninth promotion gives a single ability, like your fourth promotion does. It is an ability that can be passed along to your workers. There must be a better one than this Farmer’s Rest ability.”

I gave Ranic a look that told him to back me up on this.

Ranic rolled his eyes. “There are many that are better. I could train Arnold for the next decade to gain access to the best of them, but I’m not going to do that. Each promotion is an incremental increase into both a farm’s productivity and its workers’ welfare. The ability to fall asleep easily and rest comfortably is a benefit to those who work on his farm. It may not give direct benefits, like some abilities, but it will make sure all his workers are well-rested, offering the best chance for everyone to do their best work without mistakes.”

“I don’t like it,” Beldose said. “What about the choices the consultants I spoke with suggested?”

Ranic lost his pleasant tone. “Those consultants are fools. Two of those choices were utterly ridiculous. Blackwood is too far from the major trade routes to take advantage of flavour-enhancing abilities that reduce storage life. The third was an excellent suggestion, but it was also the sort of suggestion any idiot fresh from the academy would give. The Aerating Step ability is an old standby, and any farmer will tell you that. You don’t need a scholar.”

Beldose scowled. “But it has a greater effect than the promotion ability Arnold wants.”

“To whom?” I asked. “Yes, it might slightly improve my farm, but going to bed and falling asleep straight away will make me more productive. If I don’t waste time falling asleep each day, I’ll have more time to focus on what matters. So my question would be, is my farm going to make more money, or am I?”

Beldose paused. “Your method is already significantly more profitable than your farm will be,” he admitted. “And if this promotion could be used to increase your ability to make these discoveries, then it would be wise to invest this promotion in you rather than in your farm. I don’t like it, but I can see the logic. I withdraw my objections.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

Beldose gave a small nod of understanding. He didn’t trust me, but he didn’t dislike me, either; he wasn’t arguing with me as payback, but to secure his bank’s investment. “What’s the timeframe for the royal builders constructing the farm manor?”

Isabelle sighed, obviously frustrated. “They can’t begin for five years. Our regent’s disposition towards magical buildings has suddenly become much more supportive. Projects that have been held up for years waiting for approval have all received it. Every royal architect capable of designing the building is currently too busy to do so.”

“Why is Regent Katella interfering already?” Beldose asked. “Does she know something? Do you think she realises I’m still willing to work with you?”

“Obviously, she’s made a simple connection,” Isabelle said soothingly. “Having a level 3 house of scholars that specialises in farmers so quickly after construction shows we’ve either made a significant amount of experience or several discoveries, both of which could potentially help level a farm manor. She’s trying to stop Arnold from growing quickly, because it will make it easier for her to crush him.”

Seeing Beldose’s continued concern, Jeric tried to put him at ease, as well. “I’ve sent a letter to the king’s treasurer, pointing out that a five-year wait was not included in the deal for the exploit. I’m hoping to have the matter settled within a few weeks.”

Beldose frowned and looked at me. “I will reassess our relationship if it is not built within the year.”

“I need it just as much as you do,” I confessed. “We will have it built as soon as we can.”

“Good.” Beldose dropped his gaze to his notebook and brought up the next item on his list.

The conversation started to move more quickly, and we hashed out the last of the plans with Beldose’s approval. Blackwood was going to see a major change over the next year. Its population would skyrocket, along with its actual size. There was so much we needed to do in order to bring my plan to fruition that I was entirely certain I had no clue what I was creating here in Blackwood.

But if it worked, it would be amazing.

However, to make it work, I needed to find an army of workers. And I needed to rebuild Blackwood, bigger than it had ever been before. So my time down south wasn’t going to be a vacation.

STEP 4

DEALING WITH SURPRISES

Ranic said I needed to find what made me happy. I had no idea what would do that, so I’d decided to settle for what wouldn’t make me feel so alone. There were numerous small changes I’d made in my life that made me feel less like I was an outcast. But there had only been a single moment where I completely stopped and felt a connection to this world in a powerful way. And it wasn’t because I was drunk at the time. Hearing “I See Fire” being played in a tavern while I walked down the street had been surreal. It made me feel connected to this world. And I wanted to experience that again.

“Good evening.” My Lowheart’s Lungs ability effortlessly carried my voice to all corners of the tavern, as enticing as the waves wafting from a Looney Tunes pie. “My name is Arnold Parker, and I am an incarnate. Tonight, it is my utter pleasure to introduce you to a small slice of my world.”

The members of the crowd at the Canberton tavern, where the medieval open mic night was being held, turned or looked up, giving me their full attention. With my Darkvision, I could clearly see the patrons lean forward with sudden interest. Tankards and mugs of wine were lowered, and I immediately had the entire room’s curiosity. Not just the female patrons and the one male bartender who had bought me a drink.

My fingers ran across the strings of my guitar, playing a tune few in this world had ever heard. I had no clue how to be a showman, so I was relying on my charisma to keep me from looking like an idiot.

“In my world, there was contention around the song I’ve chosen to play for you tonight. Some believed the original composer wrote it about depression, while others felt it was about drug addiction. Some even considered it to be a suicide note.”

People began to frown.

“Many bards tackled this masterpiece, but few have made it their own the way the bard, Johnny Cash, did. He tamed this song when his health was declining and his ability to give a powerful performance was weakening. The song is called ‘Hurt’. I hope you enjoy it.”

I adjusted my guitar strap by rotating my shoulder, took a deep breath, and then changed the tempo and began to play the intro. My fingers nimbly danced across the strings with a musical precision I’d never achieved before coming to this world.

It had been six weeks since I’d passed through my second threshold. That last increase in wisdom had made my minor musical tonal and timing screw-ups as obvious to me as the sun. And since I’d never put anything into dexterity, I’d been stuck practicing guitar the old-fashioned way, repeatedly screwing up until I had it right.

I wanted to share as much music as I possibly could. But over the past four weeks, I’d only managed to get in a little practice each day. Isabelle always had more nobles for me to meet, and Sarema, the head of the recruiting agency I’d hired, had a never-ending list of employee candidates for me to approve or reject.

When we weren’t in meetings, we were travelling somewhere new. This was my first night off since we successfully captured the giant—and it was only for a few hours. I still had to go talk to Sarema and look over her lists before I headed to bed.

There was so much work to do.

I opened my mouth to sing the first line, and a prompt I’d never seen appeared.

Kingdom Announcement

The annual orc horde approaches the southern border city of Ironguard. Free access to all kingdom teleportation circles has been granted to you for transportation to Ironguard.

Though the prompt surprised me, my charisma was now so high that minor surprises didn’t distract me. The first line flowed from me uninterrupted, a pitch-perfect mimic of Johnny Cash when he sang this song.

With my charisma, mimicking another’s voice completely was possible with enough practice. So, for the first time ever, Johnny Cash’s voice entertained patrons in a second universe.

I read the prompt through twice while I sang. It was vague on details. But then, it didn’t need to be detailed. Anyone who saw the prompt would know what it meant. And I certainly did.

While my method for passing through my second threshold gave a legendary boon no matter where you received it, in Radian, it also gave an unparalleled opportunity. The yearly orc horde cull was a form of power-leveling that didn’t exist anywhere else. If I happened to be on the farm while the farmer militia killed orcs, I would literally receive millions of experience points.

I was going to have to change my plans.

I dismissed the prompt, unleashed my emotions, and focused on the song. The words flowed. The music flowed. Everything felt right. Weeks of practice made this effortless. As I sang the second chorus, I realised I was enjoying myself. This had been a way for me to blow off steam and maybe introduce a few strangers to something from my world in a way that didn’t involve me answering the same questions over and over again. But I was having a lot more fun than I anticipated. I could see at least a tenth of the crowd getting teary-eyed, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves, fixated on what I was doing.

As my music faded, the crowd applauded.

I gave everyone an honest smile, pleased by their reaction. No stranger had ever liked my singing. Even when I played guitar at my first threshold party, they only tolerated me because it was my party and they were drunk.

I waved to the crowd. “Thank you all for letting me share a piece of my world with you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”

I made my way to the side of the stage to the sounds of continued applause. I put the white-yellow guitar with its silver leaf artwork Raymond had made me inside the case, locked it, threw it over my shoulder, and headed for the front entrance.

The innkeeper, an older, portly man with long, brunette hair and grey eyes, met me at the door. “Sir, why didn’t you tell me you were an incarnate?”

“It doesn’t bring the sort of attention I appreciate.”

The innkeeper glanced at a few of the women I’d been talking to earlier and laughed. “I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed your performance, and you’re welcome to play here any time you like, even though you aren’t a bard. Have a good night.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.”

I opened the door and stepped out onto the streets of Canberton. Night had set in; deep, oppressive darkness coated everything. It fought with the streetlamps burning on every corner.

Still, that meant nothing to me with the Darkvision ability. Everything was as clear as day to me, but I could see where shadows transitioned into light.

Canberton was an ugly, level 9 town with a population of 65,000. It had been built on hills with a patchwork of twisting roads and alleys. There was no uniformity anywhere. Brick houses sat next to log cabins and stone manors, and none of them were the same size or shape. I’d visited more than a dozen cities and large towns in the past four weeks, and none of them were this poorly designed. Canberton was the greatest example I’d ever seen of why city planning was important. It was a constant reminder that we had to build Blackwood correctly.

Whatever Canberton lacked in visual appeal, it made up for in aroma. The city’s major industry was perfume, and the night air smelled like wildflowers that were just a little too sweet.

I started walking towards the centre of town, humming to myself, as I tried to work over the prompt’s ramifications. I wasn’t worried about being made to fight the orcs. That wouldn’t happen. But I was worried about everything that was going on here in the South. Isabelle had been right. She needed me. The nobles needed me. They cared about their people. And they liked to be reassured the farmers they were sending to us were going somewhere better.

I was lost in my thoughts, trying to come up with a solution to how I could leave without causing trouble, when a gruff, female voice cut through my musings. “Halt, citizen!”

I glanced up to see a guardswoman standing in front of the gate to Canberton’s central district. It was the only part of the town within a wall, but the wall only surrounded three sides. Like I said, Canberton had terrible city planning.

I stopped walking and focused. A prompt appeared above her head.

Guardsergeant Tindra

“Guardsergeant Tindra, how can I help you?”

She frowned, clearly not expecting my pleasant tone. “Why are you skulking about after sunset with your name hidden?”

“I’d hardly call walking down the middle of the road, ‘skulking’. And as for my name, I’m a private man. I don’t like every random stranger knowing every last detail about me.” Despite that being true, I opened my interface and changed my display so she could see everything she needed to relax.

My dad had raised me not to be rude or difficult with cops. If I needed to be either of those things, I should ask to speak with a lawyer and shut the hell up. He used to say most cops had their heads on straight, but cops were still people, and everyone had their good and bad days. It’s just most people didn’t have a gun on their hip and a twitchy trigger finger on their bad days.

His advice didn’t mean so much in this world, but I still listened.

I watched as Tindra read my name, then my Landlord title, followed by my Woods’ Master and Stone Master titles, before seeing my crown’s mark.

She swallowed, took a step back, and visibly paled all at the same time. “I’m so sorry to have bothered you, sir. Please enjoy your evening. Would you like me to escort you to your destination and carry your instrument?”

In Blackwood, everyone knew me as Arnold, not even Farmer Arnold, so no one had treated me differently after I gained the crown’s mark. But it wasn’t the same for others. Adoya, my retainer and master trapsmith scholar, only agreed to work for me because I had the mark; and several of the master miners whom I’d hired as contractors had come to my aid, refusing to help the regent and exploit me because of the mark; but apart from those few individuals, no one had treated me differently. That wasn’t the same here in the southern cities, where the threat of war with the orcs was constant.

The vast majority of people who received the crown’s mark around here did so by saving an entire village, town, or city. They were heroes. So everyone in the southern cities had the utmost respect for the crown’s mark, even if they weren’t like some people who would go out of their way to help me because of it.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, once again hiding my information. “You have a good night.” I stepped past her and entered the central district, humming cheerfully, but still not sure what I was going to do.

* * *

Sarema was one of those nobles who had managed to keep her class, but who’d gone absolutely nowhere afterwards, stagnating into obscurity. She’d never been the mayor of a village or town, and she had no interest in going to war, so she was still stuck at level 10. She was in her late 40’s, but Isabelle said she had been completely grey since her early 20’s due to the stress involved with her preferred subclass and profession.

The customary tapping of her foot sped up as I stepped through the entrance of the Mad Oxen. The restaurant was one of the better ones. It could seat a hundred, it had uniform tables and chairs, and the food was decent. The expense of hiring it out was high, but hiring out a restaurant for only a couple of days was much easier than hiring office space. And this way, Sarema would remember to eat.

“Good, you’re finally here,” Sarema said, words tumbling together as she spoke too quickly. “I’ve got a list with three dozen borderline individuals for you to look over and evaluate, and then we need to talk to a woman about a butcher’s apprentice.” She lifted an intricately carved dragon bone pipe to her lips and inhaled a deep breath of tobacco smoke, foot still tapping at an intense, ADHD speed.

I smiled to myself as I walked over to her table. It was littered with lists of people and a cold, half-eaten stew. Sarema was the most high-strung workaholic I’d ever met. She was thin, prematurely wrinkled, and had a personality that fluctuated between extremely abrasive and extremely kind and considerate. My high charisma and stunning good looks had absolutely no effect on her whatsoever, unlike her dozen female assistants.

I liked her for that.

Also, she was fun to fluster.

What I was about to say was going to really upset her. “Bad news, Sarema. I’m going to have to cut our evening short. I’m leaving for the nearest teleportation circle within the hour. It looks like this year’s orc cull will hit Ironguard.”

She huffed out her breath, forming a realistic smoke dagger through an ability she had before glaring at me. “Unacceptable. I have a contract to fulfil that requires my organisation to find you nearly 2,000 highly skilled employees of varying classes within another six weeks. There is too much work to do. And I won’t ruin my perfect track record over something like this. You shan’t be going.” She started glaring at me, daring at me to disagree.

“That’s not your choice to make, Sarema.”

“Yes, it is. Discussion over.”

She wasn’t joking, and I had to fight the impulse to chuckle. “Sarema, you can keep recruiting without me. You’re only having me evaluate potential employees you claim are borderline, and I reject nine out of ten of them.”

She took a quick puff from her pipe, blew out another smoke dagger to remind me how annoyed she was, and then followed it up by poking my chest with her finger. “But you take one in ten of them, and that’s the important part. My organisation is built on the trust of both employees and employers. I find good employers for good employees, and I find good employees for good employers. Someone bearing the crown’s mark can be the epitome of a good employer. The experience gains your employees will receive under you are significantly greater than what they will receive almost anywhere else. If I let that one in ten slip through the cracks, I will have failed to perform my job correctly for those individuals.”

I also liked Sarema because she had integrity. Far more integrity than I did, if I was being honest with myself…which I was more often than not these days. I could see why she and Isabelle were friends despite their age difference. Sarema was so much like Jeric that I imagined she couldn’t help it.

I didn’t reply.

Ten seconds passed as I let Sarema acclimate the new information into her schedule. What I had just said had completely thrown it off, and her brain had basically melted, but she was incredibly flexible despite having such low attributes. Her whole new plan was ready in another forty seconds.

“I’ve worked out how to function without you for two weeks. After that, I expect you to be back beside me and ready to work day and night to make up for your absence. You will get no more than the twelve days I have offered. And if that timeframe requires you to go out there and defeat the orc horde yourself, I expect you to go out there and vanquish them like they’re wheat before your scythe.”

“That’s most reasonable of you,” I said, grinning.

“I am not joking.”

“I realise that. It’s why it’s so amusing.”

As I turned to leave, Isabelle and Emily walked into the restaurant. You couldn’t look at the two of them without thinking they were mother and daughter. Well, maybe not mother and daughter, maybe sisters. Isabelle had gained a lot of attributes after I bought a complete set of blessings and needed place-holders. Her endurance and her high constitution made her look like she was now in her late twenties, instead of her mid-forties. The process which had made her look younger had aged her eighteen-year-old daughter a year or two. So when you combined that with an identical way of walking, a similar way of talking, and the fact they had the same gorgeous, green eyes and brunette hair which spilled over their shoulders like waterfalls, it was easy to mistake them for sisters.

It also didn’t help that they were both giving me the same annoyed look.

As Isabelle got closer, her annoyance grew more intense, becoming a glare. “We heard the news,” she said. “Emily was concerned you might do something foolish like run off to the nearest city in the middle of the night without enough guards to see you through the forest safely.”

“I’ll be fine. I can outrun most horses.”

Emily smirked at her mother. “I told you he was going to try it. You owe me a new dress.”

Isabelle did not look pleased. “Arnold, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that. I’m going to pretend you weren’t about to do something completely foolish. I’m going to pretend I don’t need to sit a grown man down and lecture him on taking risks that are entirely unnecessary. So, I’m going to let you rephrase your last few sentences.”

“Ah.”

Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t know why I expected more from you. Please sit down and behave. I will be back shortly with your escort. And I expect to find you here.”

Sarema pulled out the chair next to her and cleared the stack of files sitting on it. Isabelle made sure I sat, and then turned to go.

“Wait. You don’t have any objection to me leaving?”

She glanced back. “Why would I object? Emily and I received experience for making sure you go.”

“I thought you needed me?”

“I do. However, the cull is a great opportunity for you to grow stronger, and it will look bad if you stay.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The nobles who wish to see you over the next few weeks are going to expect you not to be there, because leaving to improve yourself is the choice a wise farm manager would make. And helping you go is the choice a wise noble would make.”

“Oh.”

Emily laughed at my cluelessness as Isabelle turned and left.

Sarema handed me a stack of familiar files, which listed employees and their related skills, and left me to my work.

I picked up the first file and decided to catch up on what I’d missed by taking the evening off. “How did the second meeting go?”

Emily started to clear the files and papers from the seat beside me. “Mother had Adovus so nervous that we’d leave and deal with someone else that he suggested we take every unwanted farmer in the area, whether or not they actually wanted the opportunity. That’s almost 8,000 farmers. Mother was in the middle of calming him down and explaining how that was a terrible idea when the cull was announced. We left him with a written proposal. I believe we will be finished in Canberton by tomorrow evening.”

Clearing the southern region of the kingdom of unwanted farmers displaced by war wasn’t as easy as it had first sounded. The southern nobles were perfectly willing to accept our proposal, but many of them were so desperate to get rid of them, that they weren’t thinking clearly once they knew the farmers were going to have a better life.

They wanted all the excess farmers gone, but we only wanted to take the best of those they had. Taking just anyone would only create a problem for Blackwood, so we had separated the candidates into eight tiers.

The highest tier included farmers who wanted to farm, were young, knew something about farming, and had a basic education. The next tier down didn’t require them to be young. Each tier below that removed more and more conditions, ending with those who had no skills and didn’t want to farm.

We weren’t going to take those people, for obvious reasons, but if we didn’t give them their own tiers, many of the nobles would try to sneak them into the higher tiers.

I’d taken an oath committing myself to giving the farmers we took enough experience to reach level 10, along with a full year of training under a farming scholar. If they produced three excellent crops in a row within that year, I was oath-bound to hire them for the next decade. However, if they managed to produce a perfect crop, I was oath-bound to give them the experience they needed to reach level 20 and have my scholars teach them how to work on orchards.

In an ideal world, we would only take the top two tiers. They were the only people likely to achieve the incentives I was offering. But the world isn’t ideal.

Additionally, I was offering the nobles a fantastic deal. The farmers who grew three exceptional crops would secure a job on my farm, speeding up the timeframe for paying back the experience I loaned them. Once the farmer had paid it back, their actions would start to earn noble experience for the nobles who had invested their experience to get them into the program. After the nobles earned back their initial investment, they would continue to earn experience through the Change of Fate method.

The farmers who didn’t manage to stay would still eventually pay back their loans to me and start to grow, which would help the nobles earn their initial investment back, but more slowly.

To some nobles, that meant they couldn’t lose.

No matter how many farmers for whom they bought a new life, they would always eventually make back their investment. Some, like Adovus, were willing to throw all the experience they could at their problem to make these farmers go away.

Because of that, I’d considered increasing the price, but ultimately decided against it. We were trying to do the most good, and increasing the price wouldn’t lead to that happening. So we’d divided those farmers interested in accepting our deal into tiers, and we made contracts with the nobles, stipulating we were going to take from the top down.

The nobles knew the contracts were months away from coming into effect, and we’d pointed out to them that individuals could move up in tiers through education. In the past month, several thousand adult farmers had gone back to school to study. Farmers who had formerly slipped through the education cracks because it hadn’t been cost-effective were now getting the basic school education they always should have had.

“So, there are no problems?” I asked.

Emily shook her head as she sat down. “None, except for what I mentioned. We think there are about 3,000 who should meet our criteria, but Adovus and the other local nobles only have enough experience to send half of that.”

Finding 25,000 willing farmers to fill our quota hadn’t been difficult. The overflow of farmers here in the south was like a monsoon. There were so many we were only targeting the three least-affected provinces. We were now actively turning down invitations to visit.

The problem was finding the nobles who could afford to pay to remove the farmers from their towns and cities. The 100 noble experience per farmer we charged wasn’t a high price—it was even cheap—but when you had 8,000 people to relocate, the collective price became staggering.

On paper we had 30,000 volunteers, but only 10,000 of those had backing. The southern nobles were doing favours for each other at a furious rate, trying to gather the experience they needed, but it wouldn’t be enough to fix the problem, only enough to ease the pressure of mass unemployment.

Since there were no problems, I went back to one of my new favourite pastimes, teasing Emily. “Did he offer to marry you if you took his farmers?”

Emily glared at me. “That happened once.”

I grinned back. “It was an excellent offer. He was level 45.”

“He was older than my father.”

“He had a real silver fox thing going for him!”

“That’s not the point.”

I shook my head, having fun winding her up. “Picky, picky, picky. You’re going to end up an old spinster with that attitude.”

Emily finally laughed. “If you keep this up, I’m going to start kicking you in public. Not just when we are playing board games.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She promptly kicked me in the shin, realised what she had done, and looked around, mortified. When she noticed that no one was paying attention, she turned back and kicked me again.

I laughed. My shin smarted a bit, but she hadn’t hit me hard enough to cause even a point of damage.

Sarema sighed. “I am trying to work, and you should be, too.” She handed a stack of files to Emily. “Look through these and see if anyone sticks out to you. Arnold has to go through the day’s list before he leaves, and we haven’t even begun to talk about the problem case.”

That got my attention. “What problem case? We aren’t meant to be taking problem cases.”

“It’s in the files. We will talk about it when you get to it.”

I sighed and started working my way through the dozens of individuals who hadn’t quite met the skill level I’d given as guidelines, but who possessed other qualities that might make up for their missed education or lack of understanding. Thirty minutes passed as I went through the list. I accepted four of the thirty-seven files I read, adding two carpenters who had passed through their first threshold, one hunter, and a blacksmith, before I came to the problem case she mentioned.

“I’m not getting involved with indentured workers, Sarema. It’s basically legal slavery.”

Indentured contracts were pretty shitty, as far as I was concerned, and I’d refused to participate in the practice. It was like a ten-year, unpaid internship where you gave up most of your experience for food and a roof over your head. They weren’t something just anyone could offer. Only places with access to highly skilled and specialised training could legally make those sorts of contracts. In the best scenario, those who participated became highly skilled with a low class level. Highly skilled meant that they could recover from the 10-year halt to their level. What happened most of the time, though, was that people came out moderately skilled and only ever recouped their losses after a few decades.

Sarema scowled. “First of all, I still disagree with your assessment of indentured contracts. When done right, they are profitable for all parties involved. Secondly, in this case, you would be helping someone out of a terrible contract.”

“How?”

“Derinta, the contract holder, is a rather despicable woman who is known to take advantage of locals in need. The brilliant young lady whose debt contract she wishes to sell lost her parents to a house fire and took a very unfavourable contract to see that her siblings were fed. The only time she may keep a share of the experience she earns is when her work is of excellent quality or higher. And she makes nothing more than the cost of keeping her family housed, clothed, and fed.”

“Why do they want to get rid of her, then?”

“She’s a prodigy. She’s absorbed everything she’s been taught and now produces perfect work more often than not. She’s more skilled than the master who taught her.”

“Those don’t sound like reasons to get rid of someone.”

“They aren’t. The problem is that her contract with Derinta requires Derinta to hire her siblings. The girl has been giving all her experience to them, and they get paid. There are six of them. And none of them have her skill. Six overpaid, unskilled apprentices you can’t fire in a place that requires highly skilled applicants is a problem. And Derinta is making significantly less money from this contract than she would like and will eventually lose money, so she is willing to sell the contract. If you accept, you will gain a truly gifted butcher for the next five years at the small cost of ten crowns. If you don’t, you will be leaving her in a terrible place. Derinta can sell her contract to anyone she pleases, now that she has mastered her craft.”

Isabelle walked through the door, followed by a guard carrying my luggage. I sighed. This sounded like a big headache, but I didn’t have the time to sort it out. “Fine, pay the money to hire her. But we will talk about changing her slave contract when I get back.”

STEP 5

SMALL VICTORIES

While warriors prepared for war, the wealthy ate canapés at a garden party. Racing all the way from Canberton to catch the nearest teleportation circle allowed me to arrive at Ironguard two full days ahead of the orc horde. An attendant at the teleportation circle in Ironguard had pointed me to a public administrator in the early hours of the morning, and within a few minutes I found myself in a carriage on my way to the city’s farm manor, passing by lines of soldiers and people waiting to get inside the city for safety.

The estate was located a few miles south of the city, outside the massive walls that rivalled Melgrim’s, in the middle of small, majestic woods cultivated with ornamental trees. The tired chamberlain overseeing the new arrivals checked my name against a list, and when he didn’t find it, he asked me to confirm I’d received the summons. He then offered me a large, well-furnished tent to stay in, the lowest level of accommodation that they offered. I’d managed a few hours’ sleep before being woken by a servant with an invitation to come to the party.

Soft music wafted through the air as I sat at a table minding my own business. The farm manor behind me looked more like a fortress than a house. The first four floors had narrow windows that were too small for orcs to climb through but large enough to shoot arrows from. The building provided a stark contrast to the well-kept garden in front of me, which looked like it belonged to a palace, even with thousands of people spread across it.

When Ranic said my legendary boon didn’t make me unique and that my boon was actually ‘quite common’ in the higher circles of society, I believed him. However, ‘quite common’ and there being over a thousand people with the same boon were two entirely different things in my mind.

This party was several times larger than Blackwood’s population when I arrived. Marquees lay sprawled across the garden like leaves in the fall, piled together in six distinct clusters. The most predominant cluster, the one nearest the manor, was controlled by Winslow’s family, the patriarch of which was a level 224 farmer, the highest in the world.

They were the farming equivalent of the Rockefellers, controlling a farming consortium that spanned all eleven kingdoms. They occupied the most elaborate cluster of marquees on display, each one stitched with mystical runes, capable of erecting a powerful magical barrier if needed. Everything about the family screamed wealth, as each of the 250 aunts, uncles, cousins, sons and daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren had half a dozen aides.

Outsiders were not invited into their community. I’d watched dozens of aides and members come out to talk to someone, but no one besides the family and their aides entered their marquee.

The second-most important group seemed to be made up of combat classes, those who had been born into craftsmen or production classes and had taken farmer as a second or third class, before taking a combat class. They were also the largest group, accounting for more than half of the population of the party. They kept to themselves almost as much as Winslow’s family did, dividing themselves into adventurer and warrior classes, staying as far south as they could without leaving the property.

Below those two groups were the Highcorn, Wildland, and ABBL consortia. The three consortia accounted for another 300 individuals and had a non-competition agreement with each other, from what I understood. None of them could financially compete with Winslow’s family, but each of them was the largest consortium in their parent kingdom, and together they could compete with them in other kingdoms.

Outside the major players, there were only a hundred others who were otherwise unaffiliated, but each of these individuals still had half a dozen aides, making me the odd one out at the party, because I was alone. Everything I’d learnt was from one of these aides. He’d stopped by to chat to find out if I was worth his employer’s time; I assumed I wasn’t because he’d never introduced us. So I sat in silence, in the communal marquee, snagging pastries as they passed, enjoying the light, flaky texture while trying to make sense of everything going on.

I’d come to realise that this was less of a party and more of a networking opportunity. Because no one, other than the aide, had shown the slightest inkling of interest in me after hearing my name announced upon my arrival. My standing in Radian was apparently so insignificant that no one cared about me. It was humbling to be reminded of how little I mattered after spending weeks with nobles fawning over me.

It was probably good for my ego.

Another hour went by before the opportunity I was looking for presented itself. A table of three, two men and a woman, finished whatever business they had for the day and dismissed their aides. I leaned over and picked up the box for Settlers of Catan and made my way over, silently thanking Isabelle for bringing my luggage.

“Can I interest any of you in a game to pass the time?”

* * *

“Rice and tough apples aren’t exactly luxury crops, Arnold. Even if you can sell them to the dwarves,” Gradin said, before pausing to roll the dice. “But then, Blackwood is so far from the key trade routes that you’d have difficulty transporting and selling perishables.”

“So my advisor tells me,” I said, watching the dice clatter across the table.

I was more interested in the game than talking business, but Gradin was a born merchant, and he couldn’t help himself. His long, brown hair touched his shoulders, framing a steady, hazel gaze that seemed to bore into my soul. I had a feeling that he was as old as Ranic, but possessed significantly more attributes, because he only looked like he was in his 50’s. He was just too competent and self-assured for someone the age he looked.

The dice came up with a six, so I took two wood. Paxith, Gradin’s brother, scowled as he did whenever he didn’t get something he wanted. But Vera, their cousin, also took one wood. She was clearly older than them. Aside from the Martha Stewart vibes she gave off, something about her said she’d not only seen this all before, but so many times she’d lost count.

“Your farm won’t make much of a profit,” Gradin continued. “But I suppose you don’t need it to as an incarnate. You have an entire world of knowledge at your disposal. This game alone will probably make you ten thousand crowns.”

“Over its lifetime, perhaps,” Vera said.

“If you are looking for investors, I’d be interested,” Gradin offered.

I gave him a friendly smile. “Thank you for the offer, but I decline.”

“You already have an investor?”

“I’m financing this myself.”

Gradin gave me a searching look and then ran his fingers through his long, brown hair to scratch the back of his head and grumble. “I need better aides.”

This time I gave him a searching look, trying to understand what he meant. I had no clue.

Gradin seemed to sense that. “Our aides are supposed to know who’s around us and what they’re interested in. I mean, no offense, but I knew who you were and what you represented only a few moments after you sat down, and determined there was little point in speaking to you. Or at least, I thought I knew what you represented.” He nodded to the game. “Clearly, I was wrong. If you were looking for investors, I would have missed out on a decent opportunity, hence why I need better aides.”

That was kind of interesting. “What did your aides tell you about me, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“Nothing scandalous. They informed me you were the incarnate who created the exploit all the nobles are talking about and that you have a level 5 crown’s mark. You own the majority of the fields in a level 3 village and, barring the exploit, had brought nothing new to our world. Not an insignificant accomplishment for an incarnate, but it still made you less wealthy than the majority of the warriors and adventurers that are here.”

Paxith grunted his agreement, way more focused on the game than his brother was.

Vera rolled her eyes. “You need to be more tactful, cousin. We didn’t ignore you because of your wealth, but because of the location of your village. Being at the very edge of Radian makes you a poor trading partner. And these events are about networking as much as they are about gaining levels.”

Paxith nodded and rolled the dice. “There is never enough time to see everyone you want to see, so you settle for those you need to, and hope they have time to fit you in. We barely have a million fields between us. So we must wait for those with real power to fit us into their schedule.”

“Exactly,” Vera said.

I stared at the people I was playing with and tried to accept their statement. They had a million fields between them and weren’t considered influential. That was shocking. It was no wonder everyone was ignoring me.

I had to ask the obvious question. “How many fields do you need to be considered influential?”

“It isn’t a matter of size, but scope,” Gradin replied. “Our farms are all centred around a few cities, so we haven’t built up an extensive network to transport and trade goods. We mostly cater to a local market. Since we’re so local, the larger players rarely need to interact with us.”

“It’s normally us who need to interact with them,” Vera said.

Paxith suddenly roared with laughter as he flipped over the card he’d bought. A victory point. The last one he needed. “Who needs skill when you have luck?” His voice boomed across the marquee, startling several people at the nearby tables.

Gradin rolled his eye at his brother and then turned to me. “It seems I’ve lost.”

“We all lost,” I said.

“Semantics,” he said, waving away my reply. “There must be some way out of this situation. I can’t let my little brother beat me.”

I laughed. Brothers were the same wherever you went. “Only one. It is customary on my world when you play a new game to count the first one as a practice round. Claim it as a practice round, and his victory is null and void. You then must take part in a rematch.”

Gradin grinned. “Practice round.”

Paxith immediately argued.

* * *

In the late afternoon, I approached the market that had sprung up near our sleeping arrangements on the far side of the manor. There was a small but constant flow of foot traffic, as servants rushed about seeing to the needs of thousands of guests. Food, drink, paper, chairs, and anything else you could imagine someone might need sped by me.

We’d played a few more games after the “practice round”, causing a small crowd to gather and watch. As word got out, more and more people showed up, intrigued by the game the way everyone in Blackwood had been.

Paxith had continued to win, to his brother’s frustration, which was fun to watch. And the longer we played, the more they loosened up, eventually filling me in on the ins and outs of the cull.

Besides the experience gains and the networking opportunity, the cull was an excellent chance for shopping. The concentration of the rich and powerful meant every major merchant in the kingdom was here. Anything I could possibly want was only a short stroll away.

Tents of every shape and size had sprung up, displaying silk banners with company names. Beautiful men and women stood out front displaying everything from jewellery to enchanted weapons. No one cried out to draw my attention to their tent, far too sophisticated to use such methods to attract customers. Instead, every tent offered me a glass of wine or port, hoping to bribe me through the door with expensive drink.

I ignored the merchants selling luxury goods and the shoppers buying them as I walked up to the massive tent the adventurers’ guilds had erected. It was a multi-coloured monstrosity that reminded me of a circus tent. Two guards at the entrance reached over and pulled the flaps back as I approached. A burst of cold air escaped the tent, washing over me as I entered.

The interior was arranged like Comic-Con. Booths sat shoulder to shoulder, with designated paths for wandering. Each guild had their name above their booth, along with a list of their wares behind them. I was barely through the door before someone called my name.

“Landlord Arnold, how wonderful to see you!” Talia shouted.

The pink-clothed wizard waved at me energetically from her bright-pink booth, wedged between a wall of polished oak and professional whites and greys. Her booth could just barely see the entrance, so it surprised me that she had spotted me. She was giving me the biggest smile as the quartermasters of the surrounding booths looked on with interest.

Talia was exactly who I was looking for. The items I wanted to buy were common enough, but Ranic had given me clear instructions of how much I should pay for them, and every adventurers’ guild I had been to so far wasn’t willing to go that low. But I was considered a friend of Melgrim’s adventurers’ guild, so what I wanted should finally be in my price range.

I didn’t get two steps toward her before another voice called out, “Landlord Arnold, I hope the blessings I sold you were put to good use!” Magwir called.

The powerlifter-shaped wizard was manning the booth right in front of the entrance, smiling at me over the shoulders of his customers.

“They likely saved my life,” I replied honestly. There is no way I would have been able to keep up with all the work leading up to capturing the giant without them.

His smile grew. “Then would you do me a favour and speak to me before finalizing any purchases? I believe we can come to a more suitable arrangement.”

I hadn’t spent more than a few hours with the quartermaster of the capital’s adventurer’s guild, but I liked him. He was straight-forward and easy to deal with. “I’ll stop by.”

Magwir nodded again, and his attention returned to the customers in front of him.

The excitement the other quartermasters had shown when I was speaking to Talia withered away after Magwir spoke to me, and none of them so much as looked at me as I made my way over to her.

Talia, however, hadn’t lost any of her enthusiasm after seeing me speak to Magwir. The moment I reached her, she laughed. “You know, I knew you were lying when you said you needed the cloak to draw the giant away from the other villagers, but I never expected you were going to use it to trap one.”

“Ah, I didn’t have to in the end. Everything sort of went to plan, and it walked into the reservoir without my interference.”

The adventurers’ guilds had required a great deal of background information when I issued the quest to kill the giant, so nothing I’d just said was a secret.

Her eyes went wide. “It didn’t.”

“It did.”

“What about the build breaker ability I sold you?”

I made a so-so motion with my hand. “It wasn’t needed for how things went down, but I’m still happy I had it.”

“Did you use the war pitchfork?”

“Nope.”

She frowned. “How much of what I sold was needed?”

“All of it. It’s just most of it didn’t get used.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“The speed items helped, and the Darkvision ability was extremely useful. I like Lowheart’s Lungs, and Ambidextrous is useful in day-to-day matters. The overalls and hat are also my casual attire. They are literally the most comfortable clothes I’ve ever owned.”

“So, it wasn’t a total waste, then.”

“Far from it.”

“Good. What can I interest you in today?”

“I need a full set of rare farmer promotion crystals.”

There was no functional difference between a common crystal and a rare promotion crystal besides the fact that a rare crystal was twice the size of its common counterpart, had a slightly higher concentration of magic, and occurred less often when raiding dungeons. But the fact that there was a difference meant there was probably a reason for it. The fact no one had worked out that difference was irrelevant to me and Ranic. I was going to live a long time, and if they ever found out what the difference was, I wasn’t going to short-change myself.

“That’s a little boring, but you came to the right place. Now would that set be to level 100 or 200?”

The question surprised me. “Do you seriously sell sets up to level two hundred?”

“We do here at the cull. And I’ll take your shock as a request for a level 100 set. But I would have suggested it anyway, as you weren’t level 25 last time I saw you, which makes me wonder how you got through your second threshold so quickly and through it with a legendary boon, no less.”

Alarm bells were going off in my head. But there wasn’t anything I could say to pacify her. Denying that I had the boon would be pointless. They’d given me a tent, and if she went digging, she’d find I’d already told people I had it. So, I didn’t say anything, and I kept my face neutral.

She eventually shook her head. “You must have paid a fortune to be pushed up the queue. There is normally a decade-long wait to receive the boon. Or did the king organise it for you as a reward for solving the stagnation dilemma?”

“I’d rather not say.”

She winced. “So, not the king, then. I mean, it makes sense, since you have the crown’s mark, but the loan to buy that boon is the kind no one will envy. You’ll be paying it back for a century. Now, is there anything else you would like to purchase today? Perhaps a few farmer abilities?”

“I don’t need any farmer abilities, and if I do, my advisor will get them for me.”

“Perhaps a set of formalwear with the same enchantments as your overalls, then.”

I was about to refuse when what she said sunk in. “Wait, you can do those enchantments to other articles of clothing?”

“Certainly.”

“Why didn’t you mention that last time?”

“It’s far more expensive, and back then you seemed to be on a budget.”

“How much more expensive?”

Talia told me.

I gulped. “That’s more than the price of a village!”

“It’s a different enchantment. The enchantment we gave you was the farmer’s version, which required farming attire. This is a universal class enchantment, which gives buffs to all your classes, instead of just your farmer class. It’s significantly more powerful, and we have to have the dwarves make it for us.”

“I’ll just take the promotion crystals today.”

Talia shrugged and gave her price. I went to talk to Magwir, and he gave a lower price. I took that back to Talia, who scowled and went to talk to Magwir.

I ended up paying for the promotion crystals at base. With all the guilds here, they were competing for sales, and something as common as farmer promotion crystals was the sort of product they all wanted to move quickly. Talia and Magwir ended up splitting the sale, each taking half for their guild, and I went back to my tent 2,200 crowns poorer, having paid twice the price of the common counterpart for a box filled with promotion crystals.

I was grinning the entire way back.

I sat down on the edge of my four-poster bed and opened the box. Inside were ten satin pouches, stitched with a number between 1 and 10. Each pouch would raise its corresponding promotion to its max. I took out the one labelled 5 and dumped 5 of the 50 green crystal marbles inside into the palm of my hand. A prompt appeared.

You have found 5 rare farmer promotion crystals. Would you like to use them to level your farmer promotions?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes.

You have 5 farmer promotion crystals available.

I selected my Advanced Farmer Bonus and the crystals disappeared in a minor flash of light, sending a tingle up my arm. Another prompt appeared.

Congratulations, your Advanced Farmer Bonus promotion has increased to level 1.

Advanced Farmer Bonus - You and the farmers that work under you on your farm receive 19% more farmer experience.

I repeated the process nine more times until the final prompt appeared.

Congratulations, your Advanced Farmer Bonus promotion has increased to level 10.

Advanced Farmer Bonus - You and the farmers that work under you on your farm receive 100% more farmer experience.

I pulled out the pouches labelled 6 and 7, and went through the same process.

Congratulations, your Increased Crop Yield promotion has increased to level 10.

Increased Crop Yield - You and the farmers that work under you on your farm receive 50% more yield from crops you grow.

Congratulations, your Increased Livestock Yield promotion has increased to level 10.

Increased Livestock Yield - You and the farmers that work under you on your farm receive 50% more yield from livestock.

I put the empty pouch back into the box and closed the lid. Ranic had told me I wouldn’t feel different after leveling my promotions, which is the only reason I wasn’t disappointed right now. The 2,200 crowns was as much as your average farmer earned in six or seven lifetimes. It was a heinous amount of money. You would think that you would feel a change. But you didn’t. It was a little annoying. Something so significant should have more fanfare. I’d just doubled my farm’s experience gains, for crying out loud.

I opened my interface to look at my stats.

My stats hadn’t changed, so I dismissed them.

I shook my head as I opened my trunk and put the box away, before gathering up my board games. Hopefully, someone would want to play. It would help take my mind off how underwhelming leveling promotions felt.

STEP 6

MAKING NEW FRIENDS

“Incarnate Arnold, come and share a drink with Friend Torvac,” Torvac said as I walked past his table in the adventurers’ marquee the following day. “Torvac wishes to introduce Arnold to Friend Misk.”

Dice rolled in the background as I turned and smiled at the imposing, seven-foot-two adventurer.

Torvac wore intricately crafted, purple mithril plate armour that was moulded to the contours of his body, like a second skin. His monstrous strength had toughened his body past the point where he required a gambeson, so the armour was so close to his skin he almost looked naked. And the enchantments laid upon the armour were so powerful that it gave off a faint glow, even in direct sunlight.

A longsword and a short sword were strapped to his back, a short-handled warhammer rested on one hip, and a handful of throwing knives rested on the other. He was handsome, but not cover model handsome, had a full head of light, brown hair, and looked like he was in his early forties—but I was pretty sure he was over a century.

In a marquee full of high-level adventurers, he stood apart. So did the man sitting across the table from him. He looked like he was at the very edge of death’s door, clutching the thick, rune-stitched, grey robe he wore tightly around him despite the day being pleasant. Instincts I didn’t know I had warned me he was the more dangerous of the two.

I grinned at Torvac. “I’d love to.”

Yesterday, while introducing the farmers to Settlers of Catan, I’d caught Torvac’s attention as he was walking back from the market. He’d found the game fascinating, losing his imposing presence as he watched each game with growing delight. Unlike most who had been watching, it excited him for the pure fun of it. There were no ulterior motives. He’d just wanted to join in the fun.

So I introduced him to Risk, thinking it was more his style. It was. He’d loved that game so much he decided we were now friends. He’d invited me into the warriors’ marquee and had me teach the six different games I’d brought to anyone who would listen. Each of my games now had a full team of players and a crowd of a dozen watching and waiting for their chance to play.

Torvac lightly clapped me on the shoulders as I took a seat, and then he leaned over and snagged an empty tankard before filling it with ale from the jug and passing it to me. “Incarnate Arnold, this is Torvac’s friend Misk. Misk save Torvac’s life eight times, but Torvac saved Misk’s life twice.” He raised two fingers. “Is greater achievement.”

Misk had long, black hair and a short goatee, but his skin was so pale it made him look like a corpse. He rolled his eyes, causing them to glow, as he reached out to shake my hand. “It was only once,” he said sarcastically. “Choking on a cherry doesn’t count.”

The moment I touched his hand, I shivered. My stomach turned. His grip was firm, but his skin felt as cold and stiff as it looked. Something was seriously wrong with him. I quickly took back my hand, not wanting to touch him longer than I already had. It might have seemed rude, but the impulse not to touch him was the strongest I’d ever experienced, and my instincts warned me this wasn’t an impulse I should fight.

“Torvac says it counts, so it counts. Do not confuse Incarnate Arnold.”

“Are you all right?” I asked quietly.

Misk chuckled. It was a dry, wheezing sound, which somehow sounded like a heavy smoker coughing. “I am most certainly not alright. I’m quite dead, or as close to it as humanly possible, while still being able to speak.”

I stared, unsure what he meant.

“Friend Misk is lich protector of the southern region,” Torvac explained, seeing my confusion. “Misk has twenty-three classes. Misk is very important man in Radian kingdom. Misk is only known survivor of zombie plague.”

That was too much information for so few words. “Wait, what? You have twenty-three classes?” I completely ignored the lich comment for the other information. I could figure that out another time.

Misk continued to chuckle, wheezing every third breath. “You sound more surprised by my number of classes than the fact that I am a lich.”

“Well, yes. I knew the number of classes you could get didn’t have a limit, but I’ve never heard of anyone having that many.”

Torvac lowered his tankard and wiped his mouth. “Torvac has six classes, less than most here, but Torvac only likes to fight.”

I looked around at the hundreds of adventurers. “Wait, everyone here has multiple classes? How?”

“The farmer boon,” Misk said. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Coming to the border doesn’t just give farmer experience. The militia receive small amounts of spearman, archer, and crossbowman skill experience while they fight. We receive a tenth of that. The militia is so big that a single cull is usually enough to increase the spearmen, archer, and crossbowman skills to level 100. Once there, all you have to do is take the class and farm thresholds, which only take a few years each class. Alternatively, you can chase thresholds the moment you acquire the skill, but that can be significantly harder without class benefits, depending on the class.”

Torvac snorted into his tankard. “Friend Misk never wait for class to farm thresholds.”

Ranic had never told me that. I opened up my interface and found the description for my boon and reread it, taking in the ramifications.

While on your farm, you automatically receive a 10% experience bonus from experience generated within its boundary. While on a farm that is not your own, you automatically receive a 10% experience bonus from experience generated by the farmers who are part of that farm. Experience gained through this method does not crystallize.

“Wait, does that mean that if the militia decided to open up a market where everyone started buying and selling, I’d receive merchant experience? Wait, have I been getting experience because of the local market?”

Misk blinked several times and slowly shook his head. “Torvac said you were clueless, and that you had only recently received your boon, but I didn’t think your lack of knowledge would be this astonishing. To gain access to one of the five great boons without knowing its true value is honestly unheard of. And to answer your question, yes. That has been giving you merchant experience. But you don’t need it. The boon gives you an experience bonus for any experience generated on your farm, so long as the farmer class can acquire the skill. If your farm is large enough to require butchers and carpenters, that can make you reach the skill cap in less than a decade for most skills. It’s why the wealthiest craftsmen become farmers before becoming adventurers or warriors.”

I looked around the marquee again, taking in the hundreds of high-level adventurers. Holy shit, was the farmer class actually awesome? I shook my head. This was a lot to process.

Torvac scowled. “What Friend Misk says is untrue. Torvac and many here were not wealthy before becoming warriors. Torvac had to become wagon for noble children when Torvac became adventurer and level them to 50 in return for gaining great boon.”

“What?” I said, not understanding the man. I’d gotten used to him not using singular pronouns, because his native language didn’t have them, but sometimes he wasn’t the clearest when making his point.

Misk sighed, frustrated. “There are only six farms in the eleven kingdoms that have the capacity to brute-force access to the boon. When they aren’t using this method for their own people, they sell access to it to outsiders. Many of the wealthiest noble houses try to secure a place for a craftsman who plans to become an adventurer in return for that craftsman leveling their children.”

I took a drink to give me a few seconds to think. “I thought adventurers had to gain experience themselves.”

Torvac laughed bitterly.

Misk shook his head. “As with all classes, there are methods for getting around the limitations put on us by the system. Torvac, when he became an adventurer, was a level 105 spearman with the attributes of a level 105 spearman. One of the first promotions that adventurers can acquire allows them to form a party with up to twelve people when fully upgraded and share experience equally, as long as their adventurer levels are no more than 10 levels apart. Torvac had to take this promotion and form a party with eleven nobles’ children and then go into low-level dungeons and clear them by himself.”

“It took Torvac twelve years. Worst decision of Torvac’s life. Noble children so useless. No, I cannot sleep on ground, sticks too hard. No, we cannot cook dinner. That is servants’ work. We want share of loot. So annoying. Torvac wanted to slap them many times. Torvac could not, oath prohibit Torvac from doing so. So Torvac waits until oath fulfilled, then Torvac slaps each many, many times. Torvac then have to leave kingdom very quickly. That’s how Torvac met Friend Misk.”

“Ahuh,” I said. “Back to the subject at hand. Misk, are you saying that the farmers outside with large farms have dozens of skills up to level 100?”

Misk nodded. “Obviously.”

Was this what Ranic had meant when he said that I had a life of unlimited possibility ahead of me? I thought he was talking about wealth, but was he talking about this? I could understand why he didn’t explain it to me. He didn’t want my actions and thoughts clouded by greed. If I had known this before we headed down south, I wouldn’t have been thinking about the people I could help. I wasn’t that good of a person. The ability to get a couple of dozen skills up to level 100 was too enticing. Just learning about it had me distracted.

Dozens of ideas began rushing through my head. Things I needed to change. There were new possibilities I needed to take advantage of.

Misk cleared his throat almost a minute later. “I can see my information has distracted you. I don’t mean to be rude, but I asked Torvac to introduce us because I had a few questions for you.”

I chuckled nervously, embarrassed by how right he was. “Sorry, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Torvac said you were from a world much more advanced than our own, without magic, and that your intelligence was high enough for perfect recall. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions I have on human anatomy. Your answers might save me several decades of research. I’d be willing to give you a 50% stake in any profits this information generates.”

Torvac laughed. “Friend Misk never made money from research, Friend Arnold. But Misk is good man. Misk is trying to find cure for zombie plague.”

* * *

The flap to my tent loosened, waking me. “Wrong tent,” I mumbled sleepily. This was the third time I’d been woken by some drunken aide trying to find their sleeping arrangement in a sea of identical tents. Misk had talked to me for hours until I finally told him I needed to go to bed. He was fascinated by DNA and mitochondria, and he knew how to phrase his questions so that my mind found the answer he needed almost immediately. Apparently, getting information from someone with perfect recall was an art.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the orcs have reached the edge of the city zone, and the direction they are coming from puts the manor directly in their path. Everyone has been asked to gather in the garden for safety.”

A month of sleeping in a barn waiting for a giant to appear and having to deal with the monsters we had baited out of the forest had conditioned my body to give me a surge of adrenaline whenever danger was near, even when exhausted.

“I’m getting up,” I said, wide awake.

I rolled out of bed and pulled on a change of clothes, not bothering to check the small hand mirror to make sure I was presentable. With my charisma, messy hair looked like I’d walked out of a salon. I picked up my war pitchfork and stepped outside the tent. I’d been told repeatedly I wouldn’t need to defend myself, but I would rather have it and not need it than not have it and find myself having to use pastries to fight an orc.

The night was calm. Everywhere, people were exiting tents and heading for the other side of the farm manor. By the position of the moon and stars, I guessed we were about an hour from dawn. I started making my way towards the garden, following the loose line of people, when a voice called out, cutting through the darkness. “Hey, boss.”

I turned toward the familiar voice and spotted Lenlin walking towards me.

What was he doing here? And how could he see me? It was the middle of the night.

Lenlin had been as much muscle as fat when I first met him. That had changed once my farm received the Quick Foot upgrade. The ability to jog effortlessly everywhere helped him trim down so that he now only had a small potbelly. I stared at him so long that his name appeared above him.

Farmer Lenlin, level 74

I gawked at his current level. “What the hell have you been doing while I was gone?”

Lenlin chuckled. “Ranic said he didn’t tell you. I thought he was joking.”

“Tell me what?”

“He started walking us through how to grow a perfect crop almost as soon as you caught the giant. I managed to do it.”

I’d been too busy since capturing the giant to keep track of everything that was going on, and Ranic knew that, so his answer was a complete surprise to me. “Why are you here?”

Lenlin laughed. “It turned out that helping you allowed me to gain enough experience to receive the same threshold option you did.”

I asked the obvious questions. “What path did you take? And when did you get the Darkvision ability?”

Lenlin seemed pleased with himself, pointing over his shoulder to the adventurers’ guild’s massive tent. “Just now. And you’re looking at your farm’s first advanced farmer. I’ve got four of the trainees under me, giving me a 20% monthly experience bonus each, which is why I want to renegotiate my contract.”

That would be a big bonus, a big bonus that could become a real problem for me. “We need to head towards the garden, so walk and talk, and try to be discreet. What did you want to renegotiate about your contract?”

Lenlin lost the grin falling in beside me. “I want to be able to give my bonus experience to people outside my immediate family—for them to use, of course, not sell. I’m not going to piss you off over that after you were decent enough to let me sell some.”

That was an understatement.

“Why?”

“I’ve got a lot of family outside of Blackwood. This could help them, and it’s no use to me anymore.”

The deal I’d given Lenlin, Manson, Pel, and Jeric had turned out to be insanely good. All of them had the experience they needed to reach level 100 several times over. The deal I’d given to the new recruits wasn’t anywhere near as good, but it was still better than anything else they could do.

“I’m guessing Manson and Pel are going to want to do the same?”

“Maybe. I haven’t mentioned it to them, and they failed to grow a perfect crop. They might succeed this time, though.”

“I’m going to say yes for now, but you will probably lose access to the high-value trainees in a few months. There isn’t a farm on the planet that would let someone earn that much experience without taking most of it.”

“I figured as much.”

He didn’t seem upset by my statement, so I figured we’d said enough. “How are things?”

Lenlin lost his cheer. “Not good. It’s as bad as the month leading up to catching the giant, but worse in some ways. There is more variety to the monsters, making it harder to deal with them. Thankfully, we have enough people this time. But still, I got all the levels after 50 through my boon.”

That was worrying. I slowed down as we approached the garden. There was no one nearby listening to our conversation, but I didn’t want to talk about this in a crowd.

“Let’s find somewhere to sit down. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day.”

* * *

Business never stops, even when there is a battle going on. Despite the early wakeup call, everyone was back at it, making deals and trying to gain insights into current events. The Highcorn, Wildland, and ABBL consortia approached me about licensing the games. I didn’t have the production or distribution networks needed to take the games wide, and doing it myself was going to be a lot of work. But I still turned them down. I had a lot of different ideas I wanted to bring to this world, most of which I would have to hand off to others, but I could do the board games myself. I had the time and money, and this was something I cared about.

Another wave of light hit me as I gained a new skill level.

Well done, you have gained a new level in your Spearman skill. You are now level 63.

No one in the communal marquee paid me any attention. There were only half a dozen people gaining skill levels as fast as me and Lenlin were, but each marquee had someone level up every few minutes, so the sight was all too common.

Even Misk had gained a level while he badgered me with questions I wasn’t qualified to answer.

Misk didn’t even pause as I leveled. “So these amino acids combine to make proteins, which link with DNA to become the building blocks of all life.”

I dismissed the prompt. “From what I remember, yeah. They’re these micro—”

A horn blew from the edge of the forest, overwhelming every conversation.

Misk turned to glare at the direction the horn had come from. “Damnit, don’t lose that thought. I’ll be back once we sort this out.”

Misk stood up, pushing his chair back, and a second later, he started to levitate off the ground. After that, he turned and flew towards the treeline, like Superman, gaining speed and altitude as he reached open space. I watched him go with my mouth open. I’d never seen someone fly before. It looked so effortless and awesome.

In the distance, the warriors and adventures all exited their marquees at varying speeds, some even becoming blurs as they raced across the garden at several hundred miles an hour before disappearing into the trees.

Most of the consortia and Winslow’s family stayed where they were, but a few rose and surrounded their groups, clearly guarding them. Those seated didn’t seem concerned.

“What’s going on?” Lenlin asked.

He’d been too intimidated by Misk to speak while he was questioning me.

“I have no idea, but I’m going to assume there are orcs headed towards us.”

“This should be over quickly,” Lenlin said.

“I wouldn’t place a bet, if that’s what you think,” Vera called.

I turned to her and noticed Paxith had taken up a defence position, standing between their table and the battlefield we couldn’t see. Static jumped through his hair as he began manipulating mana. “Aren’t these some of the strongest warriors in the eleven kingdoms? Shouldn’t this be a simple matter for them?”

“It is, but they’ve been asked not to destroy the woodlands surrounding the manor, so they won’t be able to use abilities. If you look closely, you will see all the wizards are staying back along the edge. Everyone going in is fighting hand to hand, so they could be at it for half the day, depending on how many there are.”

I nodded and turned back to watch the forest.

I’d asked Torvac why he didn’t participate in the fighting. He and the other adventurers would make a tremendous difference out there. Torvac said there was a big difference between level and combat experience. He and the others could basically walk through the annual orc horde without risk, but if they did, the next generation of warriors wouldn’t gain the practical experience they needed for when war broke out with real orc warriors.

The sad truth was, they had to let a few people die now so that many wouldn’t die later. There were high-level warriors dispersed among the battle lines to cover the greener warriors, so the actual human fatalities would end up being less than one in a thousand, unless something disastrous happened. On top of that, the king paid for resurrections, so the final death count was half that.

I struggled to think of this as anything but a war. Literally millions of orcs were dying out there, but the kingdom considered this to be something akin to war games, rather than actual battle. It was a way to test and harden their warriors, train them for actual combat, and gain experience.

It was barbaric.

They were basically killing orc children. Vicious, homicidal, dangerous orc children who could rip a grown man limb from limb like a ragdoll, but children nonetheless.

I understood the kingdom’s actions on an intellectual level. This was about survival. If they did nothing, a lot of people would get killed by the horde.

I didn’t understand the actions of the orcs’ parents, though. They didn’t care. They gave birth to their children in their ancestral swamps and left, knowing that this would be the outcome. It was messed up.

Well done, you have gained a new level in your archer skill. You are now level 76.

And I was sitting here and reaping the rewards, which was even more messed up.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached your maximum potential for your Archer skill.

Skill: Archer

Level: 100

Effect:

+200% to your bow wielding ability

+200% to drawing speed and damage.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Archer skill. You have earned a new level for your title: Skill Master

Skill Master

Level: 3

Effect: +30% to skill experience.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached your maximum potential for your Crossbowman skill.

Skill: Crossbowman

Level: 100

Effect:

+200% to crossbow wielding ability

+200% to reloading speed and damage.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Crossbowman skill. You have earned a new level for your title: Skill Master

Skill Master

Level: 4

Effect: +40% to skill experience.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached your maximum potential for your Spearman skill.

Skill: Spearman

Level: 100

Effect:

+200% to spear wielding ability

+200% to spear attack speed and damage.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Spearman skill. You have earned a new level for your title: Skill Master

Skill Master

Level: 5

Effect: +50% to skill experience.

* * *

The flap to my tent opened while I was packing early the following morning. The annual cull was over. As their brethren died around them, the orcs had actually leveled from their deaths. The survivors of the massacre had left to join orc society or lick their wounds and try again next year.

“Torvac came to say goodbye to Friend Arnold and offer warning.”

I looked over to see the big man stooping to enter my tent. My tent wasn’t small. The entrance was seven feet high, but it wasn’t enough for Torvac.

“Warning about what?”

“Torvac has learned that Friend Arnold turned down guild’s offer for the right to kill captured giant and guild is upset.”

“They offered me 500 crowns, so they aren’t the only ones who are upset. That’s nowhere near as much as I’ll get from selling the experience.”

The offer had come in a few hours ago. Apparently, one adventurer had put two and two together and figured that Arnold was a rare name, so I might be the farmer who had put up the quest. They had contacted their guild through their quartermaster, and their guild had made me the offer.

They weren’t the only ones interested. I’d been receiving constant updates from Jeric. There were fifty researchers from the Academy of Law currently on my farm studying the giant and the komododiles trapped in the pits. They were the only live specimens the kingdom had ever obtained, and they were excited for the opportunity to study them.

Jeric made the researchers take oaths of secrecy to gain access to specimens and had done the same to anyone else who had shown up, in hopes of hiding my trapping method from the public. Most had accepted the deal, but a few hadn’t. The village guard was currently keeping them off my land, which amounted to most of the village.

“Torvac knows this. Guild knows this. But guild does not believe Friend Arnold can do it. That’s why guild offers such pitiful amount.”

“So, what are they going to do?”

“Torvac is not sure. Torvac believes they might charge Arnold exorbitant amount if Arnold cannot kill giant. That might cost Arnold many thousands of crowns, and Torvac does not want to see Friend Arnold lose money because of small, angry bureaucrat. Torvac suggests hiring mercenary from other kingdoms if Arnold needs to kill giant and guilds make Arnold pay too much; is cheaper.”

I grinned at the kind gesture. “Thanks for the advice, Torvac. If you’re ever near Blackwood, you should come visit me.”

“And if Friend Arnold is ever near capital, come visit Torvac. Torvac will take Arnold to restaurant of Torvac’s wife, so Arnold can meet Orlana, who is small and angry and does not let Torvac fight as much as Torvac would like, but Torvac loves with all Torvac’s heart, no matter how many salads Orlana makes Torvac eat.”

I couldn’t help it…I laughed.

“Yes, everybody laughs at Torvac’s suffering. But Torvac is big man and accepts laughter among friends. Torvac’s wife does not. Orlana is small and angry.”

I laughed harder.

Torvac smiled, clapped me on the shoulder, and then left. I watched him go, waving goodbye.

I was going to miss him. He was the first person I had met outside of Blackwood whom I actually thought I could be friends with. It was too bad we lived on opposite sides of the kingdom. I honestly would have liked to see how he played Dungeons and Dragons. I’m pretty sure he would find it frustrating in the most comical way.

I could imagine what he’d say: “Why can’t Torvac’s fighter, Little Torvac, not cut off troll’s head, Friend Arnold? Torvac has cut off many trolls’ heads. Little Torvac should be able to do so too. This game is unfair.”

I snorted. If I ever got the chance again, I was going to have to take it.

I turned back to my packing and picked up the five games I had left and loaded them into the trunk. I’d given Torvac my copy of Risk to take home with him. He was looking forward to playing with his kids and grandkids. I’d promised to write to him when I started producing the other games I remembered. And he promised to buy them all.

He was definitely the kind of person I could be friends with.

* * *

“Oh, good, I found you,” Lenlin said, dashing into the tavern where I was waiting to catch my teleportation circle out of Ironguard.

It was late in the evening, and my connection wasn’t until midnight. I put down the book I was reading. It was a local history of the orc cullings. I’d picked it up from a street vendor who had an entire stack of them. It went back 387 years, to the original founding of Radian. This year’s cull was the 28th time that it had occurred here in Ironguard.

“I thought you were taking a caravan to Nobor to catch the teleportation circle there?”

Lenlin grinned. “I was, but I had an idea too good to pass up, so I jumped out of my carriage and ran back here. You need to come and talk to my cousin. Also, you need to pay a few bills for me.”

I sighed, closing the book. “What have you gotten me into?”

* * *

I was not pleased. Not because I had to pay Lenlin’s bills, nor because I was going to miss my connection. It was because I had overlooked a very important part of Lenlin’s oath. Apparently, he could disclose my trap method to people freely if they first took an oath of secrecy and agreed not to use the knowledge to compete. I could see several ways that it could come back to bite me.

Lenlin was still smiling ear to ear as we walked into the quiet room at the oath binder’s office.

I took one look at the man in the corner and had to do a double take. He was almost as handsome as I was. He was nothing like what I imagined a member of the militia would look like. He wore a crisp uniform, and he had short-kept hair and a well-trimmed beard. He could have appeared on the cover of Rugged and Handsome Magazine. I stared at him long enough to see his name.

Farmer Krombler, Level 75

He came over and offered me his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Landlord Arnold. Lenlin tells me we can be of service to each other.” Krombler had a quick way of speaking that showed clear education.

I shook his hand but didn’t feel the need to be friendly. “I have no idea why I’m here, so I can’t return the sentiment.”

Lenlin closed the door behind me, locking us in. There was a table with a dozen chairs, and a small teapot with cups sat in the middle.

“You told me not to talk about your trapping system in public,” Lenlin said.

“I know,” I said. “So why am I here, Lenlin?”

“My cousin Krombler is part of the militia. He’s a lifer, which makes him one of the officers. He can have up to sixty-four men under him. That means he is high up.”

“Not that high,” Krombler corrected, taking a seat. “There are more than a thousand of us.”

“The point is, he can get us access to the militia’s records for those who are at their end of service.”

I frowned. It sounded like I was about to be caught up in something illegal. “And why do we need that?”

Lenlin grinned. “Because you need farmers to operate your traps, and the retiring militia are perfect for it. They’ve already faced down orcs. Throwing trolls at them shouldn’t scare them off.”

My grin suddenly matched his, and all hesitation was gone. “Lenlin, you’re a genius.”

Finding the right people to operate my traps had been one of my biggest headaches. Lenlin, Manson, and Pel were dedicated and hardworking, but they were not the right people for the job. They were too young and inexperienced, like farmer families that had signed up in Blackwood who wanted to run from anything more dangerous than wolves.

The militia were much closer to what we needed. But I hadn’t even considered them. I was an idiot.

Krombler smiled. “The militia will want at least a crown for every man the militia finds for you, and I’ll take a noble myself.”

“Excuse me?”

Krombler continued to smile. “Lenlin explained what you’ve created and what you plan to do with it. I applaud your ingenuity. You will make the kingdom much safer. But to do so, you are going to need the best. I can’t get you the best. We keep them ourselves. But I can get you the best the militia will let go—men and women who will hold the line and still maintain the ability to think.”

“And that’s worth over a crown per person?” I asked doubtfully, not liking his smile.

“Yes, I’ve had some time to think over my discussion with Lenlin. The militia has always had an abundance of people who want to stay, because of the escalating pay scales. However, only about one in twenty who try to become officers succeed. It requires almost perfect scores in all aspects of their training, and many of our applicants only fall short by a small margin. I can get you access to them.”

“Couldn’t I just try approaching these people directly?”

“You’re welcome to speak to them if you like, no one will stop you. But the fact I needed to take an oath to have this conversation suggests you haven’t created an exploit, so this is a method anyone can use if they know how.”

“And if it is?”

“Then you have a problem. The militia is releasing nearly 20,000 men and women from service in the next few weeks. The cost of a crown is significantly less than what you would have to pay to entice all of them to take your oath to hear you out. And my method would be much faster.”

STEP 7

ASKING FOR HELP

Communication stations are magical buildings that you gained access to at the town stage of development. They didn’t give buffs or improve products or production. All they did was give the public access to instant communications. Think, ‘magical telegram’ and you won’t be far off. The cost of using the text-based communication was reasonable, but post was still cheaper, so only about a third of all towns and cities had one.

Blackwood didn’t. What Blackwood had instead was a pair of magical buildings with their own limited communication systems.

I placed my hand on the cold activation crystal. The illusion sand before me shuddered and then flowed like water upward, creating three distinct bodies. The outer sand cracked, and the illusion sand fell away. Adoya, Ranic, and Jeric appeared in front of me as real as they were in life.

Every detail was there, including the sauce on the edge of Adoya’s mouth.

Ranic scowled at me. “Make this quick, Arnold. You do not realise how many functions we have to sacrifice for this. What do you need?”

“I’m in Ironguard with Lenlin,” I said quickly. “He had an idea about recruiting from the retiring militia for our trap operators. I’ve spoken with one of their officers, who will help us recruit the best of those who failed the officers’ program. I need your thoughts on this course of action. I can only stay here for a few more days, so I need to get this organised fast.”

Jeric blinked. “Lenlin came up with this idea?”

I nodded.

“It’s brilliant. It’s the perfect place to look for recruits who can stomach danger. But what you’re looking for isn’t the same thing as what they look for in officers.”

“I agree with you to some extent,” Adoya said. “You will only want to take the very best—those who can follow orders when you need them to and improvise well when they realise that won’t work.”

Ranic nodded. “I’m assuming you want us to design a profile for the ideal candidate?”

This was why I had pushed for the interactive meeting. When they got together with limited time, Ranic and Adoya were all business. There was none of their petty bickering.

Adoya suddenly frowned. “We should require that the candidate be overqualified.”

“That will lower the number of potential recruits,” I said.

Adoya nodded. “You’re still in the early stages. If you allow a fool to get through now, it might hamper your potential growth…or kill someone. The new recruits are already showing efficiency and morale problems, and we don’t want them to get worse. But I have an idea. The army and militia keep extensive records. They should be able to find anyone who meets our standard who has retired in the past decade. They usually keep track of them, in case of disaster, so they can contact them directly for us. This will drastically increase the size of your pool for your potential recruits.”

Jeric wiped the side of his mouth, trying to point out the sauce stain Adoya had missed. “If you can get a few of the officers to take a short-term oath, I would open up selection to include those who have the approval of an officer, not just those who went through officer training. Not everyone who has the capability of being an officer will want to be an officer. There should be promising candidates among the standard recruits.”

“If we open up recruitment to all, we will have to raise the bar further,” Ranic grumbled. Then he started speaking faster. “Jeric will find someone to facilitate this process for you, Arnold. We can have the standard ready for you by the end of the day. But my time is up. If I stay any longer, my building won’t be able to function.”

Ranic and Adoya’s forms dissolved back into the floor, leaving me and Jeric alone.

Jeric carried on where Ranic left off, not wasting time. “I probably won’t be able to get you someone as good as Sarema on short notice, but they will do what needs to be done. The others didn’t bring this up, but I think you should take everyone who fits our requirements, no matter the expense. It will likely be a few more than you need at first, but with the regent watching us, we want to be employing all the best people before someone else discovers what you’ve developed and tries to compete.”

I nodded. That made a lot of sense. “I’m going to leave Lenlin here to assist them until it’s sorted. He’s not going to be much help with paperwork, but he knows what it can be like when it’s bad, and he will help give the potential recruits a good idea of what to expect.”

“Is there anything else you need to know? I’ve got far more leeway now than in the past, so I can push out our time if you need it.”

There were fewer people in Blackwood than ever. Jeric should have had less time, not more. “How?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve spoken with the scholars who’ve come to study the giant, and they think the village is slowly adapting to feed off the giant and other trapped monsters’ magical regeneration like it would the villagers. They think it has something to do with the fact we are feeding them, but they’re not sure. They’ve called in more scholars to come and study the phenomenon, but they won’t be here for another week. Right now, all we know is Blackwood has a little more magic to work with each day. The resources are almost up to full production.”

“Are there other changes I should know about?”

“Plenty, but none are that important yet, and we don’t have that much time. If you haven’t got an immediate problem, we need to end this, because I’ve got people I need to contact.”

I pulled my hand off the activation crystal and watched Jeric dissolve.

* * *

I stepped out of the carriage in the middle of the militia’s forward camp. The air smelled of blood and wood smoke, with a potent tinge of charred meat. Funeral pyres burned for miles in all directions around the camp.

A wagon rolled past me, bearing the eight-and-a-half-foot frame of a dead orc with deep-green skin and only a small flap of unprocessed hide for clothing. Its brow and cheekbones protruded well past its eyes, creating a natural defence against blunt weapons and blades. And its lower jaw stuck out with two small tusks. A necklace made from the spine of some beast hugged its throat, protecting it. It looked peaceful in death, almost noble in some weird, unsettling way. The orc had been carefully placed on the back of the wagon with its hands folded over a wooden club which rested on its chest. Its eyes were closed, and its face was turned up to the sky.

Krombler stepped up next to me, watching the same wagon. “Look for me on my dying day, so I can show you the truth of my heart. I took no joy in your death. Felt no happiness in your suffering. You were the storm and I the wall that held back your destruction. So go in peace and hear no curse from my lips, for you were bound by your nature, and I was bound by mine.”

I turned to Krombler, surprised. “What was that?”

He sighed. “It is the last rite we give to these children. And it is more than the orcs’ parents ever offer them.” He turned away, looking weary, as if the sight exhausted him. “The commander and several of our leaders are waiting for you on the hill.” Krombler pointed to a small hill, from which we would be able to see all the pyres. It was in the opposite direction from where the wagon was going. At the top stood a dozen men and women side by side, watching the burning of millions of orcs.

We started walking.

“What did you tell them?” I knew they hadn’t agreed to take an oath. Apparently, at their rank, they couldn’t risk hampering their ability to perform their duties.

“I told them the truth. You want their help to recruit the best of those who are retiring for something that will protect the kingdom and potentially make you a lot of money.”

“What did they say?”

“They said they trust the king’s judgement.”

“Why are we meeting here, then?”

“Because they said this is where men and women come to profit from the death of others, and there is no more fitting place to hold such a meeting.”

“Are they poets?”

“Worse: Realists.”

Everywhere I looked, fires burned. They hadn’t done anything as macabre as piling up the bodies and setting them alight. Each orc had their own pyre, and the men and women who placed the body down stopped to pay their respects before lighting it. It was a massive undertaking, and much more difficult than it needed to be. But that was the point, I think. They understood the nature of what had happened here, and they were trying to be as civilised about it as they could.

I spotted a wizard standing in a large ritual circle. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s making the wind blow south. He’s sending them home.”

Another member of the militia we passed snorted.

Krombler scowled at him and added, “The scent of their dead also has the added effect of keeping the survivors running away. They know certain death lies in this direction and will keep going, so we need not fear them for another year.”

“Your first reason was nicer.”

“Half-truths always are.”

We reached the foot of the hill and started climbing. It didn’t take long to reach the top, but the farther we climbed, the more death we could see. Imagine standing in a football stadium at night with a quarter of a million people holding up glowsticks, waving them back and forth…except there were ten times as many lights, and each one represented a life lost. That was what I could see. Millions of lives lost, each marked by a pyre blowing south. Only to be repeated each following year.

I wasn’t sure how I should feel. This was death and carnage on an unimaginable scale. So many lives lost in a single day. I didn’t get the chance to sort out my feelings, because the moment we reached the top, a woman in a crisp, dark-green uniform turned to me. She was old enough that her hair had gone completely grey. She’d pulled it back in a bun, exposing a large scar that went from her right cheek to behind her ear.

“Landlord Arnold, I am Commander Yarlin,” she said. Each word hit with the precision of someone who knew how to speak without being questioned. “I’m told you have made a great discovery in the laws. And that you wish to make money by risking the lives of those that will soon end their time under my command. I am also told you and they will be helping to protect the kingdom. Is that true?”

“I would phrase it differently, but in a literal sense, yes.”

She gave no expression for me to read. “You have no moral problem with this?”

“Not enough to walk away. The benefits for the kingdom outweigh the cost.”

Just saying that left a foul taste in my mouth. It made me sound too much like the regent. Her policy of sacrificing her warriors to raise her level and improve her city ultimately ended with fewer deaths, but she was making a choice on whose lives were spent. I wasn’t doing that. I was giving people a choice. But it was still too close for my taste.

Maybe I was a hypocrite and lying to myself. My offer wasn’t exactly the sort that people would turn down. So, was I really giving them a choice? Or was I preying on the poor and desperate?

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I did. Whether or not I benefit from this discovery is irrelevant. If I didn’t believe the benefits for everyone outweigh the costs, I wouldn’t be pursuing it. Someone else would have to discover what I have and make the choice for themselves.”

“Pretty words for a pretty face, but are they hollow or whole? I cannot stop you from approaching my people individually. But if I agree to let our people help you, I will make myself complicit. All Krombler could tell me was that what you need our people for is potentially as dangerous as what they were part of here, but will offer them significantly better personal gains.”

“I promise you, I won’t make any of your people do something I wouldn’t do myself.”

She snorted. “The delusion of the self-employed.”

“Huh?”

“The risks and trials we will bear for ourselves are significantly more than what we will tolerate for others. Your words are hollow. Make me a promise that is not.”

I frowned. She had a point. What I was offering these people was a high-risk, high-reward scenario. They were used to that. They expected that. What didn’t they have, though? The answer only took me a few seconds to find. “I’ll give them their freedom. No term of contract on their part. No minimum recruitment. If they don’t like what I am doing or how I am doing it, they can quit any time they want. But they’ll still need to take an oath of secrecy.”

She finally smiled, though it was gone as quickly as it appeared. “No man serves as hard as those who serve willingly. The militia will help you if you meet our demands.” She waved over another officer.

This one was an older-looking man who appeared to be in his 60’s. He had a bandage tied around his right thigh, judging by the way his trousers bulged, but he walked without a limp despite the injury. His hair was short and grey, and the crow’s feet around his eyes were deep.

Farmer Gurlad, Level 100

“This is General Gurlad,” she said. “He’s being forced to retire in a few weeks and wishes to oversee the militia you will employ, making sure that they’re as well cared for as you claim. Besides being a farmer, he is also an administrator, so he is perfectly capable of organising those you employ.”

I offered my hand.

Gurlad paused for a second and then shook it. “I don’t expect us to be friends, Landlord Arnold. I’ll be representing the militia. I don’t care about making money for you. I care about getting my people home to their families. And I won’t be cordial if I think you’re endangering them needlessly. If you have a problem with that, say it to my face. I’m too old for fencing words.”

“Then I’ll be blunt,” I said. “Can you take an oath of secrecy, and will you listen to my orders for the first six months? I can’t hold a candle to your experience on the battlefield, but I won’t have you endangering my people by you trying to give orders in a scenario you don’t understand.”

He chuckled. “You’ve got a high opinion of yourself. I’ll take your oath just to see if it’s deserved.”

The discussion went surprisingly quickly after that. But then, these were busy people, and I was just a small side matter for a long day. That was fine with me. I had other places I needed to be, too.

STEP 8

PLANNING AHEAD

It’s kind of amazing how quickly something can occur if you know the magic words: “I don’t care what it costs.” Yesterday, I’d been under a mountain of paperwork trying to catch up on everything Sarema had accomplished while I was at the cull. Today, I was having lunch with Fitz, a retired master administrator, a man who had previously worked for the king, who was hopefully going to make yesterday something that never needed repeating.

Fitz put down his knife and fork and pushed his plate away before wiping his mouth on a napkin and gesturing for the waiter to take it. We were in a private room, furnished with bold, blue wallpaper, in the nicest restaurant in Doursin.

The waiter cleared Fitz’s plate while another filled our glasses, and then they both exited the room, leaving us alone.

Fitz looked like he was in his early 50’s, but he was actually in his 80’s. He wore an expensive suit that looked immaculate and sat at odds with his mop of messy, blond hair. There wasn’t a single grey hair, which made me wonder if the man had great genes or if someone had invented hair dye in this world.

Age was the strongest indicator of talent in this world. The bigger the gap between someone’s age and their appearance, the more skill they usually had. People like Fitz who had such a small gap were the exception. He was one of the best personal administrative aides in the kingdom. The man didn’t want money. He was looking for a job that interested him, because he needed to pass through a threshold.

Sarema said that I would be lucky to employ Fitz. The only problem was that he wouldn’t take an oath of secrecy before he took the job, so I couldn’t share my biggest accomplishments with him.

Fitz gestured to the board games stacked on the chair beside me. “Thank you for giving me time to consider your proposal. I’ll admit these games are more interesting than any I have seen before, and they will likely develop into an extensive business, but keeping this organised will only keep me busy until breakfast. A decent administrator will have it organised by lunch.”

“It’s a side project.”

Fitz shrugged, unimpressed. “So you say.”

“If you would just take the oath—”

“No. Oaths are finicky, and I will not hobble myself for a future employer to curb curiosity.”

“That’s understandable, but you can understand how you are putting me in a difficult position.”

Fitz smiled. “I’m here as a favour to Sarema, not because of personal curiosity. I don’t lack options. I have turned down job offers from numerous members of Grandmaster Farmer Winslow’s family. And if you could impress me enough to want to work with you, then you could do so without an oath. To be clear, I’m looking for greatness, something that will eventually allow me to pass through my fourth threshold in the way I wish to. The mundane, no matter how profitable, will never allow me to gain the threshold boon I seek.”

I opened the chest sitting next to me and took out my designs for a wood-burning water heater with a copper piping system. I’d been drawing up designs for different projects for weeks now, pulling up memories from TV shows playing in the background and late-night YouTube rabbit holes. I was a long way off being a detailed artist, but someone would be able to understand what I was trying to draw. This was one of the biggest projects that I wanted my new research and development teams to tackle. Indoor plumbing, you don’t know how blessed you are to have it until it’s gone.

I handed the designs over to him. “There is a lot of technology in my world that I can bring to yours. This is one of eighty projects that I’ve had time to draw up and write notes for.”

Fitz stared at the papers in his hands, frowning without responding. Then he reached up to the corner and gently pulled away the gold paperclip holding them together, before slipping it back on. He did this several times until his mouth gently dropped open.

His gaze returned to me, showing surprise. “What is this?”

“A paperclip. It’s one of the least interesting pieces of technology I want to bring from my world.”

That last part was a blatant lie. They didn’t have binders here, and after the first week, the stacks of loose paper became annoying to sift through. I’d had a jeweller make me a bunch of gold paperclips because it made it easy to keep individual projects together. I hadn’t even considered showing them to others, because they were just there to make my life easier.

It wasn’t even the price. Gold wasn’t a luxury good in this world, but it was still expensive because it was hard to mine. Making paperclips out of it was pricy, but necessary. Without stainless steel, gold was the easiest metal to obtain that didn’t tarnish. The only downside was it barely held its shape.

Fitz slipped the paperclip back into place and started reading the papers I’d given him. “This seems unnecessarily complicated. A large pot will serve the same function.”

“It doesn’t. This system is designed to be connected to a tap, which allows for the use of hot water in multiple rooms of a home with no extra work. It would give mundane buildings hot, running water, the same as magical buildings. Where I come from, every building had hot water without magic.”

Fitz glanced at me and then back at the paperclip. “How many unique pieces of technology do you have?”

“Hundreds.”

Fitz slid the paperclip back into place and smiled. “You have my full attention.”

It took a couple of hours, but Fitz eventually agreed to take the oath.

* * *

In less than a week, Fitz knew my business better than I did. He understood my financial and experience situations, along with all my goals and objectives. He wasn’t going to be in charge of any projects, but he was more than capable of organizing each team and keeping me updated…not that there was much to organise yet. We were still in the development stages, but he was putting systems in place now so that the projects would run smoothly when we started them.

He also understood what I was looking for in employees in a way that Sarema didn’t. I didn’t even have to ask him. He’d seen me looking through employee files, taking some and leaving others, and then he asked Sarema to give him files for everyone I had taken and rejected. He’d gone through them all, looking for patterns, and then sat down with the end-of-day options and separated them into two groups: those he thought I would take, and those he thought I would reject. He was right three days in a row. After that, he did the job instead of me.

Actually, he’d taken over a lot of my jobs, so many that I finally had a little breathing room.

It was early afternoon, and I was scribbling away at a design for a typewriter when Isabelle sat down at my table. The restaurant we were working out of was more of a tavern than a restaurant, and the food was barely adequate, but it was the only place in Bruskin that could be rented out for a few days.

“Jeric received another reply about the farm manor,” she said.

I didn’t bother to look up. “I thought the king’s aides weren’t talking to us anymore?”

“They aren’t. He spoke with his father. Eric mentioned our situation to the king while they were having breakfast. The king then sent a message to the senior royal architect, whose name is Pavatin. He usually deals exclusively with city-grade magical buildings, so I can’t confirm why he’s interested or what the king said to him, but I can guess. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Pavatin has agreed to start on your farm manor immediately, on one condition.”

“The condition?”

“You’re not allowed to influence the design. You’ll have no say in the final building.”

I glanced up to see Isabelle smiling. It was good to see. She’d smiled less and less the longer we were away from Blackwood. She didn’t want to say anything about it, but I knew she was missing Jeric.

I put down my pen. “I don’t mind not having a say. But now I’m curious why he’s interested.”

Isabelle’s smile grew the way it did when she was about to win a game. She was excited about something. “I think he’s trying to make your farm manor a masterwork building.”

I frowned, not following. “Can’t he do that anywhere?”

Isabelle laughed and shook her head, causing her hair to fall in front of her face. “No, Arnold. Masterwork magical buildings are almost as rare as captured giants, and I believe the two are related. Weeks ago, we talked about how capturing the giant might have earned the village an achievement, thereby giving the village development points to spend on village upgrades.”

“I remember.”

“Well, one of the parts I failed to mention is that because you earned the achievement, you will receive a reward. The rewards are different at the village, town, city, and metropolis stages, and your rewards have not appeared yet. I assumed they were lost, because they never appeared on the village interface. However, they might not have appeared because the village is under an abandonment order.”

“What’s the reward?”

“House upgrades. There are multiple thresholds, and you might have passed through more than one. I’m guessing here, but if I’m right, then I believe Pavatin wishes to make your farm manor before the abandonment order is lifted. That way, when it is and you receive your rewards, his building will be upgraded to a masterwork, allowing him to pass through his fourth threshold.”

I chuckled, approving of his plan. “He’s using a loophole in the system. I like him already.”

Isabelle smiled back at me. “I thought you would.”

“If he and his staff agree to take an oath of secrecy, then I’m happy to let him do his thing.”

“If he’s not?”

“Then best of luck to him on his next project outside of Blackwood.”

* * *

Emily walked into the restaurant we were working out of in Tin Town. She was smiling ear to ear; the negotiations must have gone well. She waved to me on the stage, where I was playing guitar, entertaining Sarema’s staff while they worked.

I returned the wave with a nod as she headed for the kitchen. The owner made this seafood chowder that she loved and couldn’t get in Blackwood. I hadn’t seen her eat anything else since we’d arrived.

Isabelle came in nearly a minute later, just as cheerful. She nodded towards Sarema, called me over, and tapped Fitz on the shoulder as she passed him. I finished the song I was singing and put my guitar away.

The three of them were waiting for me when I sat down. “Are we done?”

Isabelle nodded. “Yes. We’ve now found 35,000 farmers with noble backing. It’s enough that we only have to take from the first four tiers.”

Our trip down south had stretched out as much as we thought it would. It had been ten weeks since we had left Blackwood, and we had more nobles making offers than we could speak with and more farmers than we could hope to help. I’d been so delusional, swept up in manic indestructibility. Going to the cull had really shown me how insignificant I was in the grand scheme of Radian. But despite that, our time away had been a complete success.

However, things weren’t going so well in Blackwood. There were people waiting to fulfil my quest, and Jeric was making no progress convincing the builder guilds to return, now that there was a giant right outside the village. I needed to return to Blackwood and try to kill the giant. Having it dead would solve so many of our problems, but it would also annoy Pavatin. He’d already set up shop and was interviewing the village about me. I didn’t know why.

“We need to discuss Arnold’s situation,” Fitz said, scowling. “Sarema has gathered 2,786 new employees. Many of whom are unnecessary.”

“You said we needed more administrators and specialists,” Sarema replied, “so I gathered more administrators and specialists.”

“But you didn’t cancel those that were unnecessary now that we have them.”

“They have a signed contract. And I don’t go back on my contracts.”

“Arnold barely has the infrastructure in place to take everyone who is currently heading for Blackwood. Without the builder guild, we won’t have enough housing by the time they arrive.”

“That’s his problem.”

“Then hire him more builders, carpenters, and masons.”

“And what will we do with them when the projects are over?” Sarema asked sarcastically.

“They will build the barns,” Fitz said.

Until now, he’d never had a follow-up answer, and Sarema had always won the argument.

I had gotten used to working with Fitz over the last month. The man was incredibly professional and rarely joked while working. He wasn’t joking now.

I frowned, because he hadn’t mentioned this to me. “What are you talking about?”

Fitz folded his arms and turned away from Sarema to focus on me. “I’ve been systematically working my way through your interests, based on what I could currently affect, pursuing those I couldn’t when time became available. I only started looking into your plan for taking your system wide last night. Or should I say, lack of a plan?”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

Fitz’s posture softened. “I realise that, sir. But the problem remains that you haven’t thought everything through. You need an industry to provide you with traps, so you’re building it. You need operators to run them, so you’re training them. You need hunters to track your prey, so you’re finding them. But you haven’t thought about how you will implement this method outside of Blackwood. Villages won’t have enough builders to build your barns quickly, and you can’t be sure of the job they do. You need to train another group to do so. You need to start a building company.”

“You will need to find someone else to help you, then,” Sarema said.

“What’s the problem now?” Fitz asked.

“I find good employers for good employees. I don’t mean to be rude, but the sort of business you’re proposing is worth very little experience. It’s not the sort of thing I feel comfortable encouraging people to take part in.”

“I could—”

Fitz held up his hand, stalling me. “Sarema is right, sir. And offering more money to these people for her to compromise her values would be rude.”

I closed my mouth.

Isabelle smiled at Fitz. She liked the way he handled me. “So, are we finished, then?”

Sarema shrugged. “I’ve found everyone Arnold needs. All that’s left for me to do is help them transition to Blackwood.”

Isabelle looked at Fitz.

He nodded. “I believe we have done all we need to here. I can find the people Arnold needs in the north as easily as I can here.”

Isabelle smiled. It lit up her face, washing away the weariness that had been creeping in these past few weeks. “We’re heading home, then. That’s wonderful news.”

STEP 9

MEET NEW PEOPLE

Gretel’s inn was a village inn, which meant Blackwood had to keep it operating, even at a loss, or the village wouldn’t maintain its active status. The tavern’s dark, polished furniture and cobblestone floors had always reminded me of an Irish pub, making me feel less homesick than anywhere else in Blackwood. I wouldn’t call it home, but it was familiar and comfortable, like a dorm room. I’d spent more time living under its roof than in my farmhouse. So, I immediately noticed the changes the moment I entered.

Gretel had rearranged the furniture when the reservoir was being dug, adding a few more tables and twice as many chairs. But the map of Blackwood on the wall was new.

It had been in the back hallway since I arrived two years ago, because seeing it reminded Gretel of what Blackwood was before the goblin attack, and that depressed her. The fact that the map was now sitting centre stage was significant. It was like seeing your depressed friend turn up to the party.

It made me smile.

Gretel was behind the bar, in front of a wall of bottles and casks, wearing a dark-green dress that was cut low at the front. She was still the same cougar of a woman I’d first met, and she was clearly flirting with one of her patrons while she poured ale. Her freckled cheeks held a mischievous smile as she shook her head at something the man said, causing her curly red and grey hair to puff out wildly.

It was nice to see her moving on.

Ranic placed a hand against my back, gently shoving me through the door so he could enter. I took a few more steps inside, studying the other changes, momentarily ignoring the real reason I was here.

But none of that was as important as the dozen patrons I saw. Because for almost as long as I’d lived here, I’d been the only guest at the inn. And except when the reservoir was being built, there was never anyone here at this time of day.

So the crowded tavern felt strange to me, like I was somehow intruding.

Three faces lit up as they turned to see who’d entered and looked past me to Ranic. In the following seconds, they all leapt from their chairs, rushing forward like frantic goldfish. They were trying to catch his attention before anyone else could, filling the cheerfully quiet tavern with noise as they all spoke over each other.

I stepped to the side, not wanting to get in the crackpots’ way. That was Ranic’s term for them, because anyone who came to fulfil my quest had to be crazy. And after hearing how much of a nuisance they’d made themselves, I was willing to use this nickname.

The woman with short, brown hair, a squashed face, and hands that looked like they were made from melted wax did a double take and stopped in front of me. Her biceps put mine to shame, bulging against the sleeves of her blouse as she folded her arms. She gave off the impression she spent her days fighting trolls, but I knew she didn’t.

She was a master blacksmith.

“You’re Arnold, right?” Mera asked with a voice far softer and gentler than her appearance. “You look like the description I was given.”

“I am.”

The other two immediately backpedalled, ignoring Ranic.

“Wait your turn, girl,” snapped the skinny, elderly man, who had to be Master Healer Colst. He was all knees and elbows, with a bald head and a wild beard. He was dressed like a late 1800’s aristocrat on a safari. “I was here a full week before you.”

“If we are going by first here, then I should be at the head of the line,” said Sevin. He had trimmed, black hair and a pencil moustache, wore a three-piece suit, and smelled amazing, but everything about the gambler oozed opportunist, the way Ranic described him.

“Humbug,” Colst grumbled. “The academy scholars already told you your methods won’t work. The giant can swim, so flooding the reservoir will only free it, and surrounding the reservoir with bonfires to fill it with bad air won’t work, either. If suffocating a giant could kill it, the mage academy would have exterminated them centuries ago.”

“It’s more likely to work than poison,” Sevin countered.

Ranic leaned over to me and sighed. “See what I mean.”

I nodded.

To everyone’s collective frustration, Beldose was right. Without me in on the negotiations, none of the guilds would send people to work in Blackwood. In the three months we were gone, nothing had been done. So when we said we were returning, Jeric asked me if I’d be willing to run from Igwood to Blackwood, saving him three days of waiting, because the sooner I killed the giant, the better.

Ranic wanted me to try for an entirely different reason. He felt my quest was a fool’s errand and wanted me to see that for myself, so I could contact an adventurers’ guild and have them kill it for me.

I’d only been back in Blackwood long enough to bathe, receive a short update, and eat a hasty meal to replenish my calorie-starved body, so I wasn’t in the best mood.

“All right, calm down,” I said, sidestepping them to take a seat at one of the empty tables. “Look, I’m going to listen to all your ideas, but first I want to know if we can attempt any of your methods today.”

I pointed to the empty seats across from me, and they rushed to fill them.

Mera answered as she sat. “The giant is asleep, so we can try my method now. I can have the mithril garrotting noose and the horses ready shortly.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “How do you know the giant’s asleep?”

“The inn is mostly empty,” Ranic answered, taking the seat beside me. “The scholars like to observe the giant while it is unconscious.”

Colst stopped glaring at Mera long enough to take a seat and turned to me. “I’ve got a wagon full of poison and thirty small, empty casks, but I wasn’t sure when you would return, so I haven’t slaughtered the goats yet. Without their carcasses, I have no method for getting the poison into the giant. Tomorrow morning is the soonest I can be ready.”

“You can start building the bonfire ring around the reservoir whenever you are ready,” Sevin suggested, throwing me a friendly smile.

Over the past few months, I’d become more aware of the people around me. My higher wisdom made me better at reading body language and tone of voice. Sevin’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his posture was closed instead of open. Everything about him was fake.

“Ignore him,” Ranic said. “His methods won’t work, but he won’t listen to anyone.”

Ranic’s comment made me frown; it sounded like the gambler wanted to asphyxiate the giant. The bonfire ring around the edge would cause the reservoir to fill with carbon monoxide, suffocating it. It seemed like a good plan. “Why won’t it work?”

Ranic waved at Gretel to get her attention, pointed to the ale she was pouring, and held up two fingers. “You know how you don’t get out of breath from running at a sprint anymore?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, if you continue raising your endurance and constitution, you eventually won’t need to breathe. Giants are born with a lesser form of this ability. They’re so large they wouldn’t be able to live without it, but by the time they’re level 25, this ability is fully developed. If you try to suffocate it, you will only succeed in slowing it down a bit, doing no actual harm.”

That was rather unsettling.

I looked at Mera. “Okay, it sounds like you’ve got the only method we can try today.” I turned to the skinny, old healer. “Colst, if this doesn’t work, we will try your method in the morning.”

“What about my method?” Sevin asked.

I was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt. My trapping method would have sounded ridiculous to most before I tested it, and if I had stopped at the first failure, I never would have made it eventually work. People doubted him, but he might be right. So I’d give him a chance.

“My advisor says your method won’t work, and I’m willing to believe his assessment. However, if we run through the other methods and the giant is alive, I’m willing to try your bonfire idea. I’m sure you have sourced the dry wood we will need. It’s going to take a small forest to fill the reservoir with carbon monoxide.”

“What’s carbon monoxide?”

“It’s the component that makes bad air poisonous.”

Sevin continued to give me an overly cheerful smile. “Fascinating. And to answer your earlier question, I’m sure there is plenty of wood lying around the village for us to use.”

I returned his smile just as cheerfully. “And I’m sure collecting and paying for it myself would void your share of the farmer experience. The quest requires you to give me both the method and the means to kill the giant, even if it is only firewood and oil.”

Sevin’s smile never wavered. “It looks like I have some work ahead of me, then. I’ll leave you all to your business.” Sevin rose, made his way to the staircase, and started climbing.

“Two coppers say he’s climbing out the window with his luggage,” Colst wagered.

“I’ll take that bet,” Mera replied. “Gretel gave him the corner room on the highest floor with the window facing the guard’s barracks.” Mera turned to me. “If you follow me, I can explain what you need to do while I prepare.”

* * *

Mera didn’t have the charisma necessary to overcome the giant’s aura. She could only get within thirty feet of the reservoir before fear overwhelmed her, but that was more than close enough for what she needed. So she unhappily drove her eight-horse wagon out of Blackwood towards the reservoir, leaving me to walk.

An older gentleman, wearing a jacket very close to tweed and trousers that were almost cargo pants, intercepted me as I exited the east gate. He was six-foot-six with a massive beard and a physique like a steel wall. His appearance was the perfect mix of arctic explorer and university professor, giving off the impression that he wrestled bears for research purposes.

I’d heard enough about Zector from Jeric’s updates to know he was easy to deal with. He was also our strongest advocate among the academy scholars, badgering any who thought to protest. He’d made everything run much smoother. Even mediating the arguments that broke out between scholars as their personalities clashed.

“Landlord Arnold, I presume,” he greeted me cheerfully.

I smiled and held out my hand. “I’m pleased to finally meet you, Master Scholar Zector. Thank you for adhering to my rules and encouraging your colleagues to do the same.”

“It was no trouble, and you may call me Zector. Are you beginning preparation to kill the giant?”

I nodded.

“Would you object to my people watching and taking notes?”

“That might be dangerous, especially if this doesn’t work.”

Zector grinned excitedly. “That’s the outcome we’re hoping for. We’ve been studying its passive Frightful Presence ability and wish to see how the ability reacts when the giant is threatened or injured. We’ve made several interesting discoveries, but we have conflicting theories for what they mean. This will help focus our research.”

His enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself sharing his excitement. “What’s the most interesting fact you’ve discovered?”

“The ability grows dramatically stronger for a short period each time it levels, then it’s reduced to a level that is slightly stronger than it was before. We found that out when several of our scholars fainted after it leveled during a feeding. We had to call in an expert to confirm the difference, but it’s a genuine phenomenon, and it’s slowly weakening the village aura with each new level.”

“Wait. I thought the village’s aura was completely cancelled out?”

Zector chuckled. “Why would you think that?”

“Maybe the fact that we have to deal with monsters almost every night.”

“All those monsters come from species that occasionally have a natural resistance to the village aura. The giant’s aura is making it easier for them to ignore the village’s aura, but it’s not strong enough to cancel it out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Entirely; we brought in a scrak to test it. It beat against its cage, attempting to flee everywhere, inside the village and out.”

I knew the name, but then I knew a lot of names.

I started sifting through my memories for the relevant information. It didn’t take me long to find the memory where I was reading their page in The Monsters Compendium.

A scrak was a small, highly venomous lizard whose bite could kill a full-grown man in a few seconds. They were deep dwellers. Monsters that could come nowhere near a village. Adventurers used them when they were hunting dragons, because the small lizards went berserk whenever they were within miles of one. In my memory, I saw a footnote that said they reacted the same way to a village aura.

“Is a scrak enough to go by?” I asked.

“I’m willing to bet my life on it, but it’s not the only test we’ve done. Everything says the village’s aura is still in effect, only mitigated for monsters which have some natural resistance to it. It’s another aspect of the ability that we’re studying. We think it has something to do with why the village can siphon magic from the giant.”

That was good news.

“Well, if you aren’t worried about your people’s safety, then they’re welcome to watch me while I try to kill it.”

“Wonderful. Would you like to borrow our safety equipment?”

“Ahhh, safety equipment?”

STEP 10

TRY NEW THINGS

Mera wanted me to garrotte the giant’s head off using a mithril wire noose, a crane, and a team of horses. Her crane acted like a fishing pole, allowing me to extend the hula-hoop frame of the noose out over the reservoir, so I could lower it over the sleeping giant’s head. Once I got the noose around its neck, all I had to do was make the horses run. They would pull the rope attached to the mithril garrotting wire tight, cutting through the hula-hoop frame and hopefully decapitate the giant or slit its throat, killing it.

It was a bit like those claw games at an arcade. To get the prize, I had to line everything up correctly. I was interested in seeing if this worked.

I’d also be upset if it did. Mera’s delivery system was simple enough that I knew I could’ve designed it if I had thought of it. However, the mithril would have been hard to source, as her wire was as thick as piano wire instead of as thick a human hair. She’d had to use her mother’s entire supply to make the noose, and the enchantments had cost Mera her life’s savings, so she couldn’t afford for me to miss.

Deep, rumbling snores vibrated my chest as I extended the crane’s arm above the sleeping giant. Getting it into the right place was tricky, so I walked over to the edge and glanced down the 250-foot drop.

The giant had its back against the wall, directly below me, with its head rested forwards. Its long, black fur had regrown in the past few months, making it look even more imposing than it had before it fell into the reservoir. It didn’t help that we had been feeding it. The extra levels and food had increased its size, bulking it up, and making it taller until it was almost 60 feet.

I stared hard enough to analyse it.

It had gained another three levels and more health since I’d left, but I was more concerned about how it was sitting at the moment.

I made my way back to the crane and started turning the wheels to line everything up, the arm at the end silently extended, taking the mithril garrotting noose further out over the space above the giant’s head.

The crane impressed me. It was easy to understand and simple to operate. Mera did good work.

I finished extending the crane and then started lowering the noose, moving back and forth between the edge and the crane every thirty or so feet to make sure I had everything aligned.

There was a drop switch attached to the system that would allow the noose to fall over the giant’s head once I was close enough. When I hit it, there would only be a couple of seconds to get the horses moving.

I rechecked the position of the arm and the hoop several times before locking it into place. Then I stepped back to admire my work…and I stumbled awkwardly as the safety harness Zector gave me got caught around my legs.

The Academy of Law took the safety of their people seriously. They had divided the area around the reservoir into three zones, using coloured, wooden stakes. There was the largest circle, the area where you could be affected by the giant’s Frightful Presence, a concentric circle inside of that where you could be hit by it throwing something—normally excrement—and the smallest area where you could be picked up and thrown by its roar. The last area included anything within three hundred yards of the reservoir.

The new harness system surrounding the reservoir had already saved several lives, as the scholars studying the giant’s Frightful Presence frequently collapsed near the edge during their experiments. There were dozens of men and women attached to rope lines studying different aspects of the giant, while they waited to see whether Mera’s plan would work.

I managed to catch my balance before I fell and spent the next few moments untangling myself. I then waved to Zector, and he signalled his people. Most of the scholars dropped what they were doing and ran, leaving only the four toughest ones behind with Zector to observe.

I checked over the edge for the last time.

The noose was twenty feet above the giant’s head and swinging. I walked back to the wagon and grabbed the drop rope. I threw the rope over the release switch and moved back to the edge. All I had to do was yank it hard and the noose would drop, so I waited for the noose to stop swinging.

It didn’t stop.

I gave it five minutes.

It still didn’t stop.

I waved to Zector to get his attention, and he ran over. “What’s the problem?”

I pointed to the noose. “I think its snoring is moving the noose.”

Zector looked over the side and frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible, especially when it’s nowhere near its mouth. Give me a moment.”

Zector ran off to speak with one of the other scholars. They shared a hasty conversation, and then he ran back.

He didn’t look happy. “It has a passive accuracy mitigation ability.”

“What?”

“I’ll try to explain. You know how having higher luck lowers the chances of you receiving critical damage?”

“Yes.”

“Well, some monsters and warriors have abilities that lower the chances of attacks hitting them.”

“So the noose is moving erratically because the system recognises what I’m doing as an attack?”

“Yes. And it’s lowering your chances of being successful, which is fascinating, because I’ve never seen anything exactly like it.”

“How do I counter it?”

Zector shrugged. “It’s hard to say. There are potions, but they won’t work for your class. Do you have a farming interface?”

I did, though Ranic gave me an earful whenever I used it unsupervised. Regardless, having to listen to him complain was no reason not to hear Zector out. “I do.”

“How many upgrades is your farm missing?”

“All of them, except Quick Foot.”

His eyebrows rose. “Then I would wager there are a few that might improve how steady the noose is, but we’d have to test them through trial and error.”

Ranic would kill me. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Then I don’t think I can be of any assistance. You’ll just have to drop it and hope you compensate for the sway.”

“I’ll need to talk to Mera.”

Ten minutes later, I was back with permission to go ahead. I’d offered to postpone my attempt or let Mera see for herself. She’d refused both offers and told me to do my best. She didn’t want to risk Colst’s method working before I gave hers a try.

I grabbed the rope attached to the drop lever and approached the edge. The giant was still snoring, and the noose was still swinging.

Nothing had changed.

Several minutes went by as I got used to the swing. The back-and-forth motion had a rhythm to it. It danced to the tempo of the giant’s snores, despite the two theoretically not being related.

I timed it out and then pulled the lever.

The rope holding the massive hula hoop dropped. I didn’t wait for confirmation that it had worked. That wasn’t how Mera wanted me to do things. I ran past the horses at the rear of the team, and slapped the front runner on the ass hard. “Heya!”

The horse spooked, bolting forward, causing the rest to break into a gallop. The team of eight rushed forward in a panic, quickly getting to the end of the slack on the rope.

I saw the moment the noose reached the giant’s throat, because the horses stumbled and then stopped. It was like they had hit a wall. That spooked them further, and they dug their hooves in, trying to escape.

They clearly wanted to move forward, but they couldn’t.

After several seconds, I grabbed the reins to help them pull. The moment I caught the reins, they immediately started rushing forward again, moving towards me. Without my movement speed buffs, I would have been trampled.

I stayed ahead by running backwards, and after twenty feet the horses stopped again, yanking me to a halt with them.

Then we flew toward the reservoir, crossing ten feet in the blink of an eye. A sickening pop came from my shoulder and a sharp spike of pain forced me to let go.

You have taken 35 bludgeoning damage.

The pain made it difficult to focus, but I saw bones break as the horses’ legs snapped like crackers, inverting due to the sudden force pulling them the other way. I landed face-first in the dirt, spitting out grass. My arm felt like it had been pulled from its socket, and I’d only travelled part of the distance they had. I immediately made myself look up to see what happened.

The horses lay in a pile, screaming in agony, for another second, and then they shot backwards over the edge and into the reservoirs.

A deep, primal roar filled the air.

I saw the shockwave coming.

Damnit.

STEP 11

COMING BACK TO WHAT’S IMPORTANT

The sun set over the horizon, taking with it the day’s heat and my first failure. Tired and sore didn’t begin to describe how I felt as I trudged into Emily’s parlour and flopped into the vacant seat at the table. Jeric noticed my sorry state and offered me a glass of wine. I waved it away before taking the plate of bite-sized sandwiches Ranic offered, without looking up from the game of chess he was playing with Jeric.

I put the plate in front of me and stuffed two sandwiches into my mouth, bulging my cheeks. I barely noticed the taste of the meat, egg, and chutney as I tried to sate the hunger that had been building for hours.

The system enabled me to push my body far beyond what should have been possible, but there was always a cost. Not straight away, but eventually. My body was letting me know I needed to recover from my two-day run from Igwood.

“How’s your arm?” Jeric asked after I finished inhaling the contents of the plate.

“Dislocated,” I said. “Yaceb reset it and said my constitution will repair the damage by morning.”

Ranic nodded, moving his bishop. “Checkmate in seven.” He smiled at Jeric to gloat and then turned to give me his full attention. “I spoke with Zector about what happened. He thinks there weren’t enough horses to make her plan work. But the scholar on the far side of the reservoir said some sort of red energy appeared around the giant’s throat as it woke from the cut. It grew brighter as the giant pulled away. She believes its health dipped, but it didn’t take additional visible damage. She thinks it’s a unique use of a common defensive skill, one they haven’t encountered because no one has ever tried to garrotte a giant.”

“I don’t care what it was. I’m not going to try that again.” I absently rubbed my aching shoulder. “I was holding the reins when it pulled the horses back. If I had been a bit stronger or wrapped it around my hand, I could have gone over the edge, even with the harness.”

“I have checkmate in five,” Jeric said seeing something Ranic hadn’t, before turning to me. “Let’s talk business.”

Ranic’s gaze snapped to the chessboard as he tried to figure out what he’d overlooked. “We should update him on what he’s missed first.”

Jeric hadn’t just asked me to hurry back because I needed to kill the giant, though that was the main reason. He also wanted me back early so we could go over everything that had changed before his wife and daughter returned.

“True,” he said. “I’ll start with the least important changes. Master Miner Datter was expelled from the miners’ guild to appease the regent and has taken up residence near the quarry. He claims your quarry is producing far more gems than it should be with our population, but he only has his Rock Hound promotion and a few abilities to go by. He knows about the effect of the giant, which has made him too superstitious to actually pull them out, because he’s afraid they’ll stop appearing if he interferes.”

“Is that good news or bad news?”

Ranic shrugged as he glared at the chessboard. “Knowing you’ve got gems popping up all over the place is helpful. At least, we know the connection Redcliff forged still works. And having Datter sit around isn’t a hindrance, either, since he’s paid on commission. It’s his extended family that’s the trouble.”

“What extended family?”

“They’re not actually his family,” Jeric said. “He just calls them that. They’re a bunch of old gem chasers Datter knows. They’ve all decided to retire to Blackwood with him.”

“So, now I’m running a retirement home for old miners?”

Jeric and Ranic gave me the same, confused look. “What’s a retirement home?”

I paused.

One of the enormous benefits attributes gave you was the ability to age gracefully. I hadn’t seen one elderly person who couldn’t walk around and do light work since arriving. Constitution improved health, and every class had it as a base stat, leveling with every level or every second level, meaning everyone got it. It made cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s rare, and if you did get those diseases, there were treatments for them you could receive from clerics. The treatments weren’t even expensive, as they didn’t require fast work like other healings. People would come in for a few hours a day for a few months and eventually be fine.

“I forgot you don’t have those. Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain some other time. But it’s a good thing you don’t have them.”

Ranic scratched his chin and turned back to the chessboard. “The new traps have arrived from Weldon, with multiple replacements. And you’ve earned close to 35 million experience in the past three months.”

“That sounds tough. You had to be busy to gather so much.”

Jeric nodded. “There’s barely a night where a manual barn isn’t used.”

“What else do I need to know?”

Jeric frowned. “Nothing else comes to mind. You know everything I need to tell you that’s important. Ranic?”

“The academy scholars have conflicting theories over how the village is siphoning magic from the giant. Some think it is weakening the village’s ability to siphon magic from humans, and others believe it is evolving a new function.”

“That’s not exactly something Arnold needed updating on.”

Ranic shrugged. “I figured he’d ask me about it at some point.”

He was right. I had been wondering about that. “Where do you want to start, then?”

“Let’s start with what you have,” Jeric said. “You have a potential farmer pool of 35,000, which is more than we need for fewer than 15,000 fields, even if we ignore the fact that we don’t have experience for all of them. You have over 2,000 workers of varying classes to start up a trap-building industry and farm, along with quite a few for your other projects. And you have money coming in from Beldose to fund most of it. You also have 3,500 ex-militia who need to be taught how to install and operate trap barns.”

I held up my hand. “Wait, what do you mean 3,500 ex-militia? We only need 200. And we were only supposed to be taking their best.”

“We are,” Ranic said, clearly annoyed with his chess match. “It turns out they had an extreme glut of over-qualified candidates, even when we raised the standard to only take the peak. There were more than 700 who fit our criteria from this year’s retirement alone. Add in those who left in the past decade and you have nearly 6,000 potential applicants. More than half signed up.”

“Why didn’t we turn them down?”

“We need farmers to operate the manual trap barns,” Jeric said. “And I analysed the cost of hiring them early, against the risk of the regent finding out how your method works and hiring them before we do so in the future.”

“You think she would?”

Jeric nodded. “While you were gone, my father reached out to me and mentioned that she approached the king about using Blackwood as a testing ground for whether or not you did create the solution to the Stagnation Dilemma. She suggested he put a halt on Blackwood’s level until our land price has stabilized, and he’s seriously considering her suggestion.”

Jeric’s father, Eric, was a royal scholar who ate privately with the king several times a week. He and his father were estranged, having only met in person a handful of times; Eric’s position prohibited him from having a family, so Jeric was born out of wedlock to a prostitute. Even though they were estranged, Eric had been using my crown’s mark as an excuse to keep in contact with Jeric, passing along information that would be helpful to me, so they could share a conversation.

If Eric thought it was important enough to reach out for, then it likely meant the regent was going on the offensive again. So I dropped the matter. I’d have to absorb this cost like all the others. “What don’t I have?”

Jeric took a sip of wine and then sighed. “You don’t have the infrastructure to house the vast majority of your workers, nor the smithies and the carpentry workshops to allow them to apply their skills. With the giant here and the abandonment order still in place, you don’t have any guild willing to come and build it for you, either.”

Ranic scowled at the board, clearly unable to see how he was going to lose. “I’ve tried to contact my colleagues, but not many will move here with the giant still around. So you don’t have farmer scholars to train your people.”

“While Ranic’s colleagues have hesitated, Adoya’s haven’t,” Jeric clarified, in as diplomatic a tone as he could manage. “Eight trapsmith scholars have already relocated to Blackwood, and the other four are in the process of doing so. The fact that we have a level 3 trapsmith house of scholars has them excited. They realise that Blackwood has discovered something important that might fundamentally change the class they study. Adoya has done the same for trapsmiths, and more than a hundred have agreed to relocate to Blackwood, either in the new contract year or when their contracts are up. Twenty-three are already here and have begun making the smaller components that don’t require a larger forge.”

“They spend so much time arguing with each other they barely get any work done,” Ranic grumbled. “They won’t listen to each other at all, which means Adoya and the other scholars have to teach them. They’ve even begun trapping their workstations against each other, fearing the other trapsmiths will steal their ideas. Horrible people to work with.”

“Sadly, I have to agree with Ranic’s assessment,” Jeric said. “Only the ones who have had components installed and begun receiving experience have shown any improvement to their disposition or motivation to do work.”

“So, they’re an entire workshop of Quillys,” I said. “We knew that going in.”

“Quilly has a friendly disposition compared to most of them,” Ranic said.

That was unsettling.

Ranic moved his castle, but he didn’t look happy about it.

“The only person in the village they seem to be polite to is Gretel,” Jeric added, moving his queen. “And I believe it’s because she controls the only tavern. Checkmate in four.”

“We are getting off topic,” I said. “What else don’t we have?”

“We don’t have a network for supplies,” Jeric said. “No matter who I approach in the merchants’ guild, they won’t do business with us. The regent has them all under her thumb. I had to get the steel and coal you wanted directly from a supplier. That wasn’t too difficult, but finished products are going to be much harder. If I have to keep approaching the businesses individually, it’s going to take a lot of time, and we’re going to have to buy in quantities that require us to stockpile, months or even years in advance.”

“Is that doable, short-term?” I asked. “Eventually, we’ll be sending wagons loaded with traps and other goods out of Blackwood, so they can bring whatever variety we need back with them once we start.”

“That’s not how transport works,” Ranic replied, hand indecisively hovering above the chessboard. “The normal way to transport goods is to unload your cargo in the nearest town that has something we need and that also trades with the towns or cities along the route to which we are shipping. The merchants in that town then take our goods to the next nearest town and bring back whatever goods they usually acquire there, the same way we bring back goods from them. But if the merchant guilds aren’t interested in working with you, then you’re looking at paying twice as much for shipping. If the village or town is on the other side of the kingdom, it will make transportation impossible.”

“We won’t get that far,” I said calmly.

My comment caused Ranic and Jeric to each raise an eyebrow and finally abandon the game.

I gave them a weak smile, embarrassed by my megalomaniac behaviour when I’d left. “I might have been a little over-eager about our capabilities. Before I left, I thought I could single-handedly fix the southern farmer issue, but we only visited three of the eight provinces in the southern region, and the 35,000 that met our criteria were out of a pool of 80,000. We also only targeted the less-affected regions, because it would have more of an impact. I don’t believe we can supply the entire kingdom with traps anymore. I don’t think that goal is realistic.”

Jeric suddenly smiled as Ranic scowled and reached into his pocket. The old man leaned over and placed two crowns in front of Jeric.

Jeric chuckled as he took the coins. “I told you he would see reason once he saw the problem for himself.”

“That’s the last time I take gambling advice from Salem,” Ranic grumbled, turning back to me. “I assume you’ve realised it’s best to focus on setting up a functioning template in the north, before partnering with other businesses who can replicate our feats.”

I wasn’t surprised the two of them were betting on me. Nor that they had already worked out what I hadn’t. They were my advisors. But they were also my teachers. Sometimes they led me by the hand, and other times they let me make mistakes, so I could learn a valuable lesson.

“I still want to train people here in Blackwood,” I told them. “But it was foolish to want to supply the entire kingdom with equipment from such a remote location. The kingdom is much bigger than I admitted. And I thought we were much more capable than we actually are.”

Jeric smiled. “No man is a kingdom, and no kingdom lives beyond men. We all must do our part, whether that is big or small, but never all.”

“So, what’s the new plan?” Ranic asked.

“We train people. We set up a trap-building industry. We expand through the northern region, making as much money and experience as we can as quickly as possible. When the world catches on to what I’ve created, we go as wide as possible, with as many people who are interested—so long as they will use my method safely. Then, we step back.”

“Good, that sounds less like something created by a man caught out by his own charisma,” Ranic said. “It is also within our capabilities if we can get our current problems sorted.”

“Which brings up an important point,” Jeric said. “I think we’re ready to contact Noblewoman Rina. It will be years before our position improves, and I’m uncomfortable with the idea of waiting longer to secure Rina’s help. The ramifications of Blackwood being stuck at level 3, if the regent convinces the king to halt the village’s level until the land price stabilises, could be disastrous. We need to speak with her sister Rina before that happens. We have to find a way out of this mess.”

Ranic chuckled. “It’s time you talked to the only person the regent hates more than you.”

“Let’s hope I can kill the giant first.”

STEP 12

POISONOUS RELATIONSHIPS

The following morning, a dwarf walked into the stables behind Gretel’s inn, where I was sewing small, oak casks, filled with the poison I’d mixed under Colst’s guidance, into the stomach cavities of dead goats. I wasn’t sure if it was my high charisma or the fact that I’d done so many strange jobs over the past couple of years, but nothing about this scenario seemed weird to me.

The fanboy rush I’d experienced the first time I met a dwarf re-emerged, causing my heart to race with excitement. The urge to drop what I was doing and run to shake his hand nearly overwhelmed me, but I managed to settle for giving the dwarf a brief glance to analyse him.

Trader Alfrion

Alfrion stood about three and a half feet tall, with shoulders wider than mine. Dark, silver hair covered his chest and cheeks, but his head was shaved bald. He wore no shirt or shoes, just a loose-fitting pair of white trousers that stopped mid-shin. A silver medallion rested around his neck for the whole world to see.

The medallion was his travel papers.

It marked him as one of the few dwarves trusted to travel freely within Radian’s borders, and allowed people to see his name through the system. That didn’t mean he was liked, only that he was tolerated. Jeric and Ranic wanted him and his master gone as soon as possible.

I could understand their feelings, even if I didn’t share them. They were afraid.

On Earth, humanity had committed enough atrocities that I can safely say we would have gone extinct if we’d received experience for killing each other. The system stopped this from happening by mutating humans who killed each other into mindless monsters. It didn’t always happen, but it happened more often than not, so people were terrified of harming each other.

That feral mutation didn’t happen when humans killed dwarves, or when, more often than not, dwarves killed humans.

So, Radian and the dwarven kingdoms had a mixed history. The dwarven kings had helped humanity settle this continent. However, since then, rogue dwarves, lone wolves, had massacred entire villages and towns in their pursuit of experience. This had left Radian’s citizens with a deep mistrust for their people and no small amount of fear, because even the weakest dwarf was a match for a level 75 warrior.

Alfrion’s master didn’t have his travel papers, which is why I’d put off speaking with them despite them being here to fulfil my quest.

Alfrion eyed me suspiciously. “You are the one who led the team that captured the village-eater?” His voice was deep and calm, like a stormy sea viewed from land.

“It was a group effort,” I acknowledged, focusing on my work.

“All significant achievements are.”

“So I’ve heard. What can I do for you?”

“My master wishes to share the waters of life and speak of the quest to end the village-eater.”

“I should be free this afternoon. He is welcome to speak with me then. But our conversation might be redundant. Hopefully, the quest will be over after I finish with these.”

“I apologise, but my master is unable to come to you. You will need to go to him.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“My people suffer from vertigo in open spaces. Only 1 in 10,000 can walk the surface without being crippled by illness. My master is not among those who can.”

“Is that why he was allowed in Radian without his travel papers?”

“It is part of the reason.”

The dwarf was holding something back. “I’m curious to know, why hasn’t he raised his charisma to fix the issue?”

“Like the elves, our path deviated from the path of our human cousins over twenty millennia ago. Cataclysms have changed our race, ensuring our survival, but leaving us unrecognisable to each other. We no longer have charisma as you do, and the path that turns away this affliction limits us in many other ways.”

Salem had told me that the elves, dwarves, and orcs had entirely different systems they lived by, but I didn’t know that included attributes.

Curiosity overcame what little resistance I’d put up as excitement got the better of me. “I have so many questions.”

“If you do not insult my master further, perhaps I will answer.”

He hadn’t changed his tone, speaking entirely conversationally, despite the implications of his words. I frowned. “How did I insult your master?”

“You know what you have done. Don’t feign ignorance.”

I tied off my stitching and gently placed the goat carcass on the ground. Then I gave the dwarf my full attention. I noticed how serious he seemed to be, so I went into my interface and showed my Incarnate title. “Can you see the title I just showed?”

Alfrion focused on me and started to frown. “You’re an incarnate.”

“Yes. I’ve been in your world for a little over two years. You’re the second dwarf I’ve met, and the first one I met briefly. I have absolutely no idea how I’ve insulted your master.”

The dwarf’s frown grew. “You’re ignorant.”

“Of many things, most of which I do not know.”

The dwarf seemed to miss my sarcasm, because he nodded. “When a dwarf goes to another dwarf’s clan, he announces himself. If the dwarf he has come to speak to is away or occupied, then he waits in the dwarf’s home. When the preoccupied dwarf returns or becomes free, he goes and meets with his guest before doing anything else, but if a second guest is there to see him and is of higher rank, then the dwarf will see this other guest first. My master is the leader of our sect. His rank can be comparable to the governor of a city in your kingdom.”

I think I understood what he meant. “So, I offered him insult by speaking with the others who had come to fulfil the quest first.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry he was insulted, but I didn’t know your customs.”

“I will explain this to my master before you speak to him this afternoon.”

* * *

After yesterday, the giant had decided that it didn’t enjoy sleeping against the outer wall, so its back now rested against the central tower. There were no signs of the injuries it sustained as it snored as loud as a jet engine, the mithril wound turning out to be the equivalent of a deep paper cut.

Hopefully, this attempt would be more effective.

Dead goats lined the edge of the reservoir, tied together with a rope connected to a sled filled with dirt, and a brake winch that could control the speed of the descent.

I leaned down and shoved the nearest carcass over the edge. The weight of the dead goat pulled the rope attached to the next one, dragging it over with it, causing a chain reaction as they went over one after the other.

I grabbed the brake lever for the winch and applied pressure. The brake jolted as the last goat went over the edge, and their fall slowed.

After yesterday’s disaster, I was glad Colst’s method didn’t involve horses. Not that you could see the aftermath anymore. The giant had already eaten everything, its voracious appetite making it a bottomless pit.

The goats continued to descend, slowly gaining speed to match a fast walk. I applied more pressure to the brake lever so they couldn’t fall any faster. I didn’t want the casks inside the goats to crash into the ground and rupture. The giant needed to eat all the poison to maximise the chances of Colst’s plan working.

The brake began to smoke at the halfway point, undersized for the weight it was holding. I lowered the pressure slightly, and the controlled fall sped up to a slow jog by the time the goats finally came to rest at the bottom of the reservoir.

I pulled out my corpse cutter, a device Quilly invented for dismembering monster corpses, and cleanly cut through the thick rope fibres with the mithril razor thread.

A fortune in mithril now hung from the giant’s neck, occasionally catching sunlight. I was considering buying it from Mera when we recovered it.

The material was rare.

The only source on the continent belonged to the dwarves, and they had their own uses for the highly enchantable metal, selling only a small percentage of the total production. The small quantity we had used in the pitfalls wasn’t difficult to source, but the more we needed, the more trouble we were going to have.

And I felt bad for bankrupting her. She’d put everything she had into her plan. If she didn’t recoup some of that cost, she’d be ruined.

I looked over the edge one last time, making sure everything was fine, and then turned and started walking back to Blackwood to meet the dwarves. I waved to Colst in the distance that it was done.

Colst returned the wave and then turned back to his conversation with a handful of scholars. The scholars were documenting the poison in case his method worked. If it did, it would change how the kingdom dealt with giants going forward.

* * *

Alfrion led me to the back of the farmhouse, where he’d erected a tent, next to a pile of dirt larger than the farmhouse. Inside the tent was a massive boulder resting on an ankle-high, brick well. The granite bricks were cut to a precise, uniform size and shape, held together with mortar. The work was so exact it looked like it had come off an assembly line. It was the kind of work only master masons could accomplish, so I knew it wasn’t built by anyone locally.

This was what Jeric must have meant when he said the dwarves had dug a hole for themselves. The boulder sitting on top weighed half a tonne, but Alfrion lifted it effortlessly, putting it to the side without grunting once.

“Follow me,” he instructed, before stepping into the hole and dropping out of sight. There was no splash to indicate that he’d landed in water.

I took a step closer to the edge and looked down, not sure what to expect. Alfrion was thirty feet below me, pointing to a ladder sized for humans inserted into the granite brickwork that reinforced the shaft.

I got down on my hands and knees and started climbing down the ladder. There was no way I could jump down like he had. I wasn’t anywhere close to being that badass.

At the bottom, the shaft opened up into a tunnel that was high enough for me to walk through. Glowing moss sat in alcoves offering weak light, illuminating walls and ceilings that were reinforced with more granite bricks, giving me the impression I was making my way through a castle dungeon. The tunnel turned several times before coming to a large hollow, where the dwarves seemed to live.

They’d covered the floor with furs and were using large piles of cushions as furniture. Dozens of large barrels sat in a carefully constructed rack against the far wall, next to several chests I assumed contained supplies. An area for cooking sat against the opposite wall, and there was a closed door at the back.

Alfrion’s master lounged in the middle of the room against a pile of cushions, wearing white trousers trimmed with gold at the belt and cuffs. He had the same hairstyle and build as Alfrion, but it was his skin colour that stuck out at me. It was so pale that he had passed full-blooded Irishman and was quickly approaching albino. I could tell he’d never seen the sun.

The dwarf smiled at me. “I am Ririon, master of alchemy, and leader of the Drunken Berserkers’ sect.” His voice was warm and tired. “I felt no insult from your actions, Landlord Arnold. You’re not a dwarf, and these are not our lands, so I won’t hold you to our customs. Come and sit with me and share the waters of life.”

I couldn’t help but feel happy that I hadn’t insulted him. He was the third dwarf I’d met, and I was giddy with excitement about this meeting, despite the dangers. I quickly sat, making a pile of pillows to lean against the way he had. I grinned the entire time. “So, I hear you want to take up my quest.”

Ririon snorted. “Yes, the quest. Many thought it was a joke. Several of our chiefs contacted your adventurers’ guild to ask why they found it funny to send something so ridiculous. They openly doubted your people when they said it was true, until the guild showed them the letter sent by the lord of this village.”

Alfrion came over, carrying two tankards filled with a black, bitter-looking brew that had a pleasant, sour odour, offering one to each of us at the same time.

“I don’t blame them,” I admitted, taking the drink with a grateful, excited nod. “It’s not exactly something that happens every day.”

Drinking dwarven ale with a dwarf was the pinnacle of nerd beverage experiences, possibly only beaten by whatever Thor gave Stan Lee in Age of Ultron. So I forgot where I was for a moment as I put the tankard to my mouth and took a sip.

The flavour that ran across my tongue was like someone had mixed a stout with shiitake mushrooms and citric acid, but in a good way. It was so sour my mouth salivated uncontrollably, and my face made that pinched expression you see in the baby videos where they’re given a lemon.

“Wow, that’s sour.”

“But good,” Ririon said. “At least most of your people think so.”

I nodded, already taking another sip. The second hit was stronger than the first. The sourness reminded me of eating good chili. There was a certain amount of burning involved, but it added to the experience rather than detracted.

Ririon laughed and then took a large mouthful.

I lowered my drink, finally remembering my manners. “Do your people have some sort of etiquette for this sort of meeting? If you do, I’m going to need you to walk me through it.”

“Usually, you would be the one to offer the drink, but I can’t stomach your human brews, so have supplied something we both can enjoy. Now that we have a drink, we talk business.”

“Wait. So, your custom, if someone comes over to talk business, is to give them booze and then talk.”

“Yes.”

“Good custom. It reminds me of home. What can I do for you?”

Ririon nodded to the barrels behind him. “These are a special brew from my private cellar. They are made with the most advanced dwarven alchemy, using rare ingredients and a very slow aging process, even by our standards. Each barrel has been distilled down from a hundred others until they are 500% alcohol. Only three members of my sect are qualified to drink it, and only sparingly.”

“Um, I’m not trying to poke holes in your sales pitch, but that’s not how percentages work.”

Ririon raised a large, caterpillar eyebrow. “What do you know of alchemy?”

“Nothing.”

“Then I will simplify my explanation. Through brewing, you can produce alcohol that affects the body. You have undoubtedly experienced this effect. Through the magic of alchemy, you can brew alcohol that affects the mind, soul, spirit, and essence of a being. Through great alchemy, you can brew a liquid that has all these properties. Through slow and careful preparations, you can concentrate this liquid into what I have behind me, a liquid that is 100% alcohol in all five layers.”

“And you want to poison the giant with it?”

Ririon shook his head. “The village-eaters are immune to body poisoning, as far as our people can tell. Anything their body deems hazardous doesn’t affect them, be it rotting meat, poison, or tainted water. We have made extensive attempts to kill them using poison over the millennia, and none have worked in any way. The poison you have fed the village-eater will not work.”

“That’s annoying news.”

“I imagine it is. Which is why I will be upfront with you and tell you I’m not here to give you a method to kill the village-eater.”

I paused, suddenly worried by the fact that he would receive an insane amount of experience for killing me. I’d come down here under the assumption that he wanted to try to kill my giant. I thought that was all the protection I needed. But now I was reminded he didn’t have his travel papers.

“What are you here for, then?” I asked, forcing myself to remain calm.

“I would like to see if it is possible to get a village-eater drunk.”

I frowned, not quite understanding the situation. “I’m not sure what you know about biology, but alcohol is a poison.”

“Yes, but that is only in the body sense, and I don’t care if that effect is nullified. We know that powerful spells of the mind and spirit influence village-eaters making them uncoordinated during combat. The mind and spirit aspects of the barrels behind me are the most concentrated form of this effect alchemy can produce.”

“And you think it will have an effect if the giant consumes enough.”

“I hope so. Capturing a village-eater has offered me an unprecedented opportunity to test whether I am correct. An opportunity I would gladly pay for, if you only name your price.”

I stared at the dark brew I was holding, no longer worried, and upset with myself for being so suspicious. I sighed. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have done it for the opportunity to get drunk with you two and play board games. Your people only exist in stories in my world. And I’ve always wanted to get drunk with a dwarf. You would have made a teenaged dream come true for me.”

Ririon and Alfrion looked at each other for a second and then laughed.

“I accept your price,” Ririon said, still laughing.

“I can’t get drunk anymore,” I said bitterly. “I went to a scholar’s party and received an ability called Socialite which stops this from happening.”

Ririon laughed harder. “As you drank the water of life, I felt its influence. I have the dwarven equivalent, so I know it well. But this ability only affects alcohol on a physiological level. With alchemy, I can still get you drunk.”

STEP 13

BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE

There was a mad gorilla pounding on my head, treating it like a bongo drum, which is a problem sleeping people shouldn’t have to deal with. The world was also spinning, which isn’t something sleeping people usually deal with either. So maybe I was awake. If I was, then I wasn’t happy about it.

I let out a groan, expressing my misery as artfully as I could manage.

I was too hot and too cold at the same time, and too much light was getting through my eyelids. My mouth felt like I’d been sucking on an extra-absorbent bathroom towel, so I started working my jaw to get some saliva going. It wasn’t easy. My tongue moved like dry, discount salami, repeatedly getting in its own way. How did it even do that?

Despite the uncoordinated misery, clarity slowly bloomed, waking like a morning flower. It was a beautiful feeling that made me accept I was extremely hung-over and hugging something warm and furry.

Please don’t be a naked dwarf.

Seriously, please don’t be a naked dwarf.

I timidly opened one eye and looked down. Birds chirped, and the smell of dirt filled the air. I didn’t see a dwarf. It was a rabbit. I blinked, opened my eyes, and looked around, confused.

I was in the forest—and not one of the safe ones. This was The Wild Woods. I’d been here enough to tell the difference. I turned further, trying to calculate how dangerous the situation was, and immediately sighed with relief.

Salem sat only a few feet away, watching me with a disgusted look on his face. “Good morning, Arnold. How was your night? I spent mine guarding an imbecile from his stupidity.”

I rolled over. It was a mistake. The gorilla playing the bongo drums decided it was the right time for a solo, and the pounding in my head grew stronger. “Oh man, what happened?”

“That is a rather entertaining story,” Salem said, voice layered with sarcasm. “You showed up at the automated barns in the early hours of the morning, blackout drunk, and mumbling about how you were going to catch a Pokémon. You proceeded to run up and down the village’s border for fifteen minutes before spotting a rabbit and chasing it into The Wild Woods, where you quickly caught up and tackled it, before shouting something about someone having stolen all your Pokéballs. A drunken scuffle ensued where the rabbit tried to get free, and you tried to hug it to your body while searching the forest floor for your imaginary lost items. I tried to intervene, but my attempts to free the rabbit failed, when you dissolved into a blubbering mess and spent the next hour crying uncontrollably and calling me a bad kitty, forbidding me from taking your Rattata over and over again. You said something about getting another Pokémon from someone called Professor Oak and then passed out, hugging the rabbit.”

Oh, hell. I got white-girl wasted.

I remembered getting my games and returning to Ririon’s. I remembered drinking, and actually starting to get drunk, and the dwarves’ lack of interest in playing anything but Uno. I remembered all three of us being pretty drunk as the night went on and then accidentally picking up one of the dwarves’ tankards and taking a swig. They had been drinking something much stronger than what they’d given me. Then everything was missing after that…until I woke up here.

I looked down at the rabbit again.

Its fur was matted with blood. My blood. The little guy had put up a fight. I had scabbed-over scratches and small bite marks all over my arms. And now that I was paying attention, they were starting to hurt.

I contemplated eating it. Rabbit pie was pretty tasty, but I figured it would be tough and gamey from the trauma, so I placed it on the ground instead.

I looked around one more time, feeling my head spin. “How far in are we?”

“Only eighty yards,” Salem said. “We’d already killed the threats closest to the border, so there was little risk of you being eaten. If you were still asleep at noon, I would have gone and retrieved someone to collect you. But I felt leaving you here to wake was too important a learning experience to waste. Now, what have you learned?”

“Don’t get blackout drunk with dwarves,” I said, trying and failing to chuckle at my joke.

“No, that’s not the lesson here.”

“What’s the lesson then?”

“Don’t mix your Socialite ability with other intoxicants. The improved mood makes you think everything is a great idea when in a suggestible state.”

“It does?”

“Of course it does. Now, where are the hunters you promised me? I’ve been working day and night for months trying to keep this village safe, and you’ve been ignoring me since you got back.”

That was true.

“The huntmaster arrives in a few weeks, but that’s all,” I said, guiltily. “Sarema, the woman who was organising contracts, couldn’t get most of the high-level people we need to move here until the contract year is over.”

“Typical. I ask you to do one simple task, and you fail.”

I sighed, way too hung-over to deal with Salem’s attitude. Besides, I hadn’t just been dodging him because I felt guilty. I’d been dodging him because I needed to calm down enough to have an important conversation. Waiting to calm down didn’t feel that important in my current state.

“Did you know?” The question came out bitter.

My tone made Salem frown. “Know what?”

“That my second threshold boon isn’t just a legendary boon, but is considered one of the great boons, and that I might have access to dozens of classes now.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? And don’t say it’s because I didn’t ask. That won’t fly in this situation.”

Salem paused, looking me over, trying to get a read on my mood. “You’re still finding your way, Arnold. You have enough problems that you didn’t need this knowledge distracting you.”

“That shouldn’t be your choice.”

“You’re right. But the person you wish to be is one who helps others. The man you currently are is one who thinks of himself first and others second. You hate yourself for this. If I’d shared this knowledge with you, then you would have made a choice you’d regretted.”

I tried not to glare at him. It was hard. “I don’t like people making my choices for me, Salem.”

“And I don’t enjoy giving ale to recovering alcoholics, Arnold. Helping others make the wrong choice leaves me culpable.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It is to me. Besides, what has knowing this information changed for you?”

“It’s given me options.”

“So you want to be a carpenter, blacksmith, or butcher?”

“No.”

“Then why is it important to know that you could level these skills?”

“Because I wanted options!” I shouted, losing control of the anger I’d been bottling up for the past couple of years. “I’ve always wanted options. In my world, if I wanted to be a blacksmith, all I had to do was study. If I wanted to be a butcher, all I had to do was train for it. But here I can only be something if I have the class or skill. The only job I was good for when I arrived here was writing plagiarised novels and farming poorly. I’m smart enough that I could have been anything I wanted back home, but that doesn’t mean anything here.”

“The world is the way it is, Arnold.”

“Well, I hate this world! I hate the constraints put on me by the system! I hate the constraints put on others! I hate that I can’t change that! And I hate feeling useless!”

“But you aren’t useless,” Salem said. “Not anymore.”

Those six words knocked the wind out of me. “I…I know that.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you still upset?”

“Because I made choices I wouldn’t have made if someone had told me what my boon could do. They manipulated me. Worse, they manipulated me for my own good.”

“And you hate that?”

“Yes.”

“Then become the man you want to be, not the one you are, so I don’t feel the need to chaperone your decisions.”

“So, this is my fault?”

“I thought I made that clear when I compared you to a recovering alcoholic.”

I stared at him.

Salem didn’t blink. “Arnold, you’re no longer in a position where you can give in to your faults. With each passing day, the number of people who depend upon you grows.”

“I know that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Ranic said I have a long life of limitless possibility ahead of me, and that I need to find a goal. I’m trying to do that. But I don’t feel like I have limitless possibility. I feel lost. I’m making decisions that will affect thousands of people without knowing what direction I want to go myself.”

Salem sighed. “Idiot.”

I was so miserable I agreed with him. “I know.”

“Not you. This time I’m referring to Ranic.”

“What?” This was the first time I’d ever heard Salem say something against the old man. I was so surprised that I momentarily forgot how upset I was.

“Arnold, you aren’t even 30. You don’t have the life experience to decide what you want to be doing a hundred years from now. You won’t have it until you have seen your first century. Your life experience in your old world is barely enough for you to look forward ten years, and that’s pushing your limits. Here, that limit is less than five years. Ranic is a driven and motivated man who has hindsight to draw upon. You do not. So you don’t need to decide what you want for the rest of your life. And you shouldn’t. All you need to do is decide what you want for the next five years, and you already have that planned out.”

“I do?”

Salem rolled his eyes. “You want to take your trap method wide to protect the kingdom. You want to start an industry to support this. You want to help as many farmers as you can gain the starting experience they need to pursue their class, helping those who were in an even worse position than you were. You want to bring as many pieces of technology from your old world to our world as you can. And you want to gain a second class. That would keep anyone busy for half a decade.”

“But what about beyond that? Ranic said I don’t understand what it means to live for centuries.”

Salem scoffed. “He doesn’t understand what it means, either. That is why I called him an idiot. I have lived on this world longer than Ranic has been alive. And Ranic’s path is not your path. You will not be forced to walk alone like he has. Emily, Lenlin, Manson, Pel, and I will all have lives as long as your own, and those are only the ones you have affected so far. In the next few years, I expect that number to grow to dozens, possibly hundreds.”

All this talk about system rules was making my head hurt worse than it already did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m too hung-over to guess. So spell it out for me.”

“I am talking about your trap method. A single farmhand can install the mithril razor thread nets, and they account for more than half of your barns’ kills. The likeliness of this farmer gathering ten million experience in a single year and receiving this threshold choice is high. That boon almost guarantees that the recipient will reach their third century. Your trap method created an effective mechanism for giving others the boon you’ve received—the boon which has greatly prolonged your life.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I mumbled.

“Clearly.”

A realisation hit me while I massaged my forehead. I dropped my hand to stare at Salem. He was still giving me the same disapproving look, but that suddenly didn’t matter.

“Salem, I can give farmers one of the great boons,” I said. My heart rate sped up, thundering in my ears, as I finally realised the magnitude of what we had done.

“I just—”

“Salem, have you told anyone I can do this?”

“No, I assumed you were all intelligent enough to come to this conclusion yourselves.”

“Salem, you beautiful bastard, I can give one of Rina’s farmers that boon. It will give her the ability to establish a very profitable farm. We have something she will really want. I need to talk to the others.”

I forgot about my hangover as I climbed to my feet. My skull pounded, and the world spun, but I fought through it as I headed for Blackwood.

* * *

Alfrion skidded to a halt in front of me as I slowed my jog back to Blackwood to a walk, clutching my stomach. He’d spotted me as I exited the forest and had come running, moving almost as quickly as I could.

“My master offers an apology for the mix-up with our drinks last night,” he said. “Did you spend the night in the forest?”

“Apparently. And it’s fine.”

“You’re injured. Did you fight a fierce battle?”

“Something like that.”

“My master wishes to know when you will be ready to get the village-eater drunk.”

My stomach revolted, and I had to cover my mouth. “Please, don’t mention alcohol.” I stopped walking and took several slow breaths, fighting the urge to vomit. “I haven’t felt this bad since before I raised my constitution. My only plans for the day involve drinking water, talking to my administrator and advisor, eating something greasy, and then sleeping until tomorrow.”

The dwarf laughed. “I will explain the situation.”

* * *

I sat in Jeric’s parlour, hugging a bucket and hating life. Water had been a bad idea. It wasn’t my body that was suffering the ill effects of alcohol, so drinking water hadn’t helped me at all. It just gave me something to throw up.

“What do you think?” I asked, having explained the opportunity to Ranic and Jeric.

“I think it would be better as an open favour,” Jeric said. “Make it an opportunity that she can use herself or trade to another noble; but other than that, I believe she will go for it. The opportunity to have a farm manager with one of the great boons and the level 50 special promotion you have is valuable enough that she won’t refuse.”

Good. This was as valuable as I imagined.

Ranic sat, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I overlooked this.”

He’d said that several times already.

“Should we offer the opportunity to others? The boons and promotions are valuable and rare now, but…” I threw up into the bucket. A minute gurgled by as I continued to heave, before the nausea settled and let me recover. I wiped my mouth on the towel and then finished what I was saying. “Once we go wide with the trapping method, they might become common.”

Ranic was looking almost as green as I was and didn’t look at me when he replied. “I doubt they will ever become common, no matter how widespread your method is, but they won’t be so rare. And if you exploit the powerful families in the kingdom now, you might find yourself surrounded by enemies in a few short years when they all know about your trapping method. So you should use the opportunity to gain allies.”

“How?”

“Soon, Blackwood is going to need a lot more food than it can produce,” Ranic explained. “If you were to offer the sons and daughters of the wealthiest landlords in the nearby towns and villages this boon, you would secure their produce for life, and at a very reasonable rate. It would free us up to specialise further.”

That made sense.

“Any thoughts, Jeric?”

“I will need to contact some people. But cultivating local allies seems like the safest course of action. We might be able to use it to get past the trade embargo the merchants’ guild is trying to use against Blackwood.”

“Get me a list of those we can ally with. Salem said this is going to be a long-term relationship, so I’d like to give this opportunity to people I like, rather than people I will have to tolerate.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

STEP 14

DEALING WITH SMALL PROBLEMS

Midmorning, two days after the casks of poison failed to harm the giant, a disheartened Mera and Colst left Blackwood, sharing his empty wagon. Before they rode out, Mera stopped by Emily’s manor and tried to file the paperwork that would make sure I returned her mithril wire when the giant was finally killed, only to have Hamlin hand her a right of ownership for her to sign, with my signature already attached, waiving a finder’s fee.

In a world where people occasionally had to drop everything and flee from monsters, ownership of abandoned goods was an entire field of law. And because of the strange situation I’d created, I could have claimed half-ownership of her noose. She’d burst into grateful tears when she found out I hadn’t.

The gambler Sevin was still skulking around Blackwood. He’d spoken with a couple of scholars about his bonfire idea and asked how much burning wood it would take to fill the massive reservoir with carbon monoxide. The answer was too much for his budget, but he hadn’t left. He was writing to merchants, trying to find someone to invest in his idea.

So, there was nothing stopping me from helping Ririon.

“So, that’s what giants do when they’re drunk,” I said, more than a little disturbed. “I could have probably lived a very happy life without knowing. It’s very uncoordinated. Do you think it usually uses two hands, or is that an effect of being intoxicated?”

Zector leaned forward to look over the reservoir’s edge. He was sitting in a deckchair. Kiln was making progress on the outdoor furniture designs I’d given him, and Zector had bought one, because of the novelty.

“Oh, it’s certainly because it’s intoxicated,” Zector said, writing something down in his book. “We have very thorough observations. It’s never needed to use both hands in the past.”

“I actually didn’t want to know the answer to that.”

Zector chuckled, giving me an easy-going grin that told me he knew that, and then he went back to observing the intoxicated giant.

I turned to Alfrion. He was seated cross-legged on the ground, taking notes like Zector.

“I think I’ve been mentally scarred enough. I’m going to go, unless you need something from me?”

The dwarf shook his head. “No. You have done everything my master asked. Knowing that it is possible to get the village-eaters intoxicated is an important step in eradicating our ancient enemy from the surface. I must stay and watch, but you are no longer needed.”

“Good.”

I left them to their research and started making my way back to the village. Gretel had given me a note from Adoya the morning after I got back, saying she wanted to talk to me when I was free. Until now, there was always something I needed to do, making this my first opportunity to see what she wanted.

I made my way through Blackwood, saying, “Good morning,” to the familiar and unfamiliar faces I passed. A few of the newer scholars nodded back uncomfortably, unsure how to react to a stranger greeting them.

It made me chuckle.

Recognising everyone in the community was as foreign to them as it had been to me when I arrived. And they no more understood the need to be cordial to everyone to maintain a good relationship than I had. It was only when I saw how awkward they were that I realised how much I’d changed.

I still didn’t like country living, but I didn’t find it nearly as abrasive as I once had. It now existed in a neutral space where I wasn’t happy or bothered. I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out when my feelings had changed that I arrived at the front desk of Adoya’s house of scholars without noticing.

“How can I help you, sir?” asked the young scholar behind the desk. He was in his late teens, with pimply skin and greasy hair and all the other horrors my teenage years had brought with it. He had the skinniness I associated with their class and long, blond hair that ran down his back. “Oh, my apologies, sir, are you Landlord Arnold?”

“Yes. Is Adoya available?”

I stared at him, waiting for the interface to trigger and his name to appear above his head.

Scholar Giffon

“I’m sorry, but I need you to confirm that.”

I opened my interface and displayed my name, deciding to leave it visible. I’d caught up on the most pressing jobs I needed to do, so there was no longer any point in trying to remain inconspicuous.

“Thank you, sir. To answer your previous question, she is with a client.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. I wasn’t used to Adoya being unavailable. “When will she be free?”

“Not until the end of the day, sir. She and all the other trapsmith scholars are fully booked.”

I was surprised by the response. “Who’s she seeing?”

“I can’t give out client names, sir, even though you own the building. But I can tell you that all the trapsmiths in the village have booked as much time as they possibly can with the scholars. They’re all looking to create improvements to Trapsmith Quilly’s designs.”

I’d left Adoya to organise her house of scholars and the trapsmiths. Then I’d handed over her correspondence to Fitz. Without Fitz to tell me what was going on, I realised I’d fallen out of the loop.

“Why?”

“The experience reward, sir. If you use one of their designs over Trapsmith Quilly’s, they will receive experience instead of her. Some of the best trapsmiths in the kingdom are currently pulling apart her system and redesigning it to be more effective. Would you like me to book an appointment with Master Scholar Adoya at the end of the day?”

“I suppose so.” I turned for the exit, muttering to myself. “I guess I’ll go find Quilly, then.”

“Trapsmith Quilly is currently in testing room three, sir.”

I turned back, starting to get a little annoyed. “Is she busy?”

“Undoubtedly, sir. Master Scholar Adoya has given her exclusive rights to one of the three testing rooms except when she is absent, and she rarely leaves the house of scholars for fear someone will invent something that supplants her designs.”

His tone had changed halfway through, so that I got the impression he was genuinely worried for her. If anyone was worried about Quilly, something had to be seriously wrong with her.

“How rarely does she leave?”

“To be honest, sir, she makes me bring her meals and sleeps in one of the spare offices. The smell is becoming concerning.”

“Would you like me to talk to her?”

“No, sir. I’m just warning you in advance. I can organise a meeting with her when I take her evening meal down if you like.”

I sighed. “Sure.” I turned to leave. “I guess I’ll go talk to Jeric.”

I exited the house of scholars, heading for Emily’s manor, but as I walked through the square, I spotted a carriage sitting outside his gate and recognised the luggage being unloaded. Isabelle and Emily were back. I sighed again, changing my plans once more, and started heading for Ranic’s house of scholars.

His servant confirmed he was in his office doing paperwork. I made my way up two flights of stairs and down beautiful, marble hallways with floors so polished you could see your reflection. Small, carved farm images covered the door-frames, and crystal sconces sat in the elaborate alcoves, providing light. The door to Ranic’s office wasn’t closed, so I walked in without bothering to knock.

Paper was strewn across his desk, as he sat hunched over, writing furiously. His hair was sticking out at odd angles, and he hadn’t touched his lunch. There was a map of the farmland outside the village next to him. He’d drawn over it in a dozen places as he tried to work something out.

“Is this a bad time?”

Ranic looked up and scowled. “Quite frankly, yes. I need to be back at the orchards overlooking Manson and Pel this afternoon, so I’ve got half a day to get two days’ worth of work completed.”

“They failed again?”

“Yes, they’re young and don’t know that much about farming, let alone orchards. If they don’t succeed this time, I’m going to wait a few years until they have more training and then try again, or wait until the orchard produces heritage seeds and have them plant them. They’re taking up too much of my time.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Honestly, no. The logistical problems I’m dealing with require specialist training. It would require you to do a few years of study. If you are looking for something to do, Jeric might need your help.”

“His family just got back.”

“Adoya wants to speak with you.”

“She’s busy with clients all day, and Quilly is in one of the testing rooms.”

Ranic sighed. “I can see that’s bothering you. Come and sit down. You look like you need to talk.”

“It’s not bothering me,” I said, moving to the nearest seat. “I’m just used to having them available.”

Ranic pushed his work aside and leaned back in his chair. “You know, it will only get worse.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Yes. You’ve managed to surround yourselves with experts. Until now, you’ve had no competition for our time, because you dragged us to a backwater village where we could be of little help. But the more people who come, the less time we’ll have. You’re starting a new trapsmithing industry and revolutionizing how farms gain experience, and that’s going to require a great deal from us if you want to be successful. The burden on us will lessen when the abandonment order is lifted and our houses of scholars are correctly staffed, but it will never go away completely.”

This was going to take some getting used to. But instead of figuring out how to make it work, I decided to change the subject. I wasn’t as upset now that I’d talked to Salem, but I needed to know why Ranic had kept this information from me. “Why didn’t you tell me how important my second threshold boon was before I left?”

Ranic’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes darted to the wooden case where he kept his brandy, before returning to my face. “It would have influenced your decisions in a negative way, so my oath to help you to the best of my ability prohibited me from sharing that knowledge.”

The frustration I’d been feeling faded. “Oh.”

“The intensity of the restriction is not something I’ve had to deal with before, but then I’ve never seen someone behave as erratically as you did from passing 100 charisma. You thought you were unstoppable. You needed time to settle down.”

I paused. His answer made a lot of sense. “Why do you think it was so bad? Is it because I’m incarnate?”

Ranic facepalmed. He took a deep breath and managed not to laugh. Then he looked up. “Arnold, normal people don’t gain 25 levels in the middle of a barn surrounded by monsters that want to eat them, before racing off to stare down a giant.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral. In hindsight, it was a stupid question. “They don’t? Are you sure about that? It sounds pretty common to me.”

Ranic laughed, shaking his head and crinkling his face. “I’m quite certain that’s not how most of us do it.”

I felt myself grin. I’d thought this was Ranic attempting to manipulate me for my own good again. He sort of was, but not in the way he had been in the past.

“Do you mind telling me about the great boon now, or is your oath still stopping you?”

“It isn’t. The boon you received is considered to be one of the five great boons of humanity. Most make the mistake of believing that the boon is great because it gives you the ability to level skills easily and continue to level past 100, not just in your farmer class but all the skills you obtain from your farmer class as well. That is only a half-truth.”

“Why?”

“The boon is a farmer’s boon, and no matter the benefits it gives to any who have it, the system designed it for farmers. Each skill in which a farmer can gain experience evolves into a class, with a series of promotions that will make a farmer’s farm better and more productive. As a builder, mason, and carpenter, you can take promotions that will make the buildings and furniture you own more durable, comfortable, and restful. As a blacksmith, you can improve the tools you own and that your people work with. As a butcher, you can improve the animals your farm raises in ways you cannot as a farmer. As a merchant, you can make everything more profitable. As a miner, your farmland will have fewer stones appearing, and the soil will be richer. The boon is a farmer’s boon, and it is there to extend your capabilities as a farmer. Or…you can use the boon against its nature and seek personal gain.”

“Your explanation makes more sense than the one everyone else has offered.”

“You were likely talking to the wrong people.”

“It sounds like it. So, it’s a boon to make my farm better.”

“All class boons are there for the betterment of their class. Sometimes they can also give significant advantages to things outside of their class, but that is not their intended purpose, except when it is.”

“What can I do with this knowledge?”

“You can make a choice. You can use the boon as it was intended and create one of the greatest farms in the kingdom, or you can use it how you wish. Or if you wish to pursue a class unaffected by the boon, you can choose both.”

* * *

I sat down beside Salem, hanging my legs over the edge of the loft, looking around at the barren interior of the empty house. With all the scholars around, Salem had to keep a low profile. There was no walking around the village as he pleased, dodging Redcliff when he stuck his head out. Too many people could see who he was, and that posed too much risk. Salem was still technically hiding from the demon lord that he and his previous companion unintentionally released into the world, which is why he was staying in the southern hamlet.

The small house we were in was one of many that the builders’ guild constructed while they were making the reservoir. It had one room, with a ladder and a loft for sleeping. There was an iron stove in the corner, and there were windows on both sides. The walls and floor were made from concentrated granite, and the roof was stone tiles.

It wasn’t a great place to live. My parents’ bedroom had been bigger. But it was dry, warm, and free. Thus, better than the bunkhouses most farmers traditionally lived in. If my workers wanted something nicer, I would have to build it for them and charge them rent, but until they brought it up, I wasn’t going to start. I had enough to worry about already.

A few minutes passed as I just sat, looking around. Eventually, I sighed. “Thank you for keeping everyone safe.”

Salem opened his eyes, tilted his head back, and yawned, displaying sharp teeth. “You owe me.”

“I do.”

“Then why are you bothering me during my few hours of rest?”

“I need advice.”

“You haven’t sought my advice in months. Why come to me now?”

I smiled. “Everyone else was busy.”

“Your poor attempt at humour indicates you’re unsure of the advice you seek.”

“I’m not.”

“Then ask your question so I can sleep.”

“If I had to take a new class today, what class would you recommend I take?”

“That depends. What do you seek to gain from the class?”

“I want something that suits me.”

“In that situation, I would recommend the scholar class, with the intent to follow the generalist path. You like to learn rules, so you can twist them and see what happens. It’s the natural path for an exploitationist such as yourself. However, though you’re suited to it, it will not make you happy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because unlike you, I listen when others speak. I hear what is said and what is unsaid. That allows me to understand others even when they do not understand themselves. You, for example, don’t even know why you quit chasing your dream of becoming a professional gamer.”

“I know why I quit. It’s because I couldn’t make it.”

“No, that is simply what you tell yourself, but it is not why you quit. You quit because your friends left. The reason you wanted to go pro was it allowed you to see them every day. The challenge of finding strategies to exploit the mechanics was just an entertaining side effect of helping them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, it was.”

Salem sat up and glared at me. “Arnold, unless you lied to me, you were offered the chance to go pro several times during your career. You claim it was ego that made you stay, thinking you could get there without others’ assistance, but you’re not that egotistical. If you were, you never would have sought out help for your trap method. That alone shows you are not cripplingly egotistical, and you would have to be if your goal was to go pro and you turned down such an offer.”

That shut me up.

He’d put his argument in a way that forced me to re-evaluate my actions and thoughts. Several minutes passed as I went back through my memories. Charley, Max, and Don were a big part of my old life. They were my only friends in high school, and we did everything together—until we didn’t, anymore.

I replayed memories of listening to the offers from other teams. They were good offers. I remembered my reactions, my reasoning, unaffected by the time that had passed.

Every reason I had come up with for turning them down revolved around my friends. Charley was working on his reaction time. Don was working on his understanding of the other characters and their abilities. If they just improved a little bit more, we could go pro. They were little lies I told myself to rationalise why I wasn’t willing to leave them.

Crap.

He was right.

“Let’s say you’re right.”

“How about you say I’m right, or we end this conversation. I don’t converse with children.”

I scowled, hating his superior tone, mainly because he’d proven he deserved it again. “You’re right. I didn’t want to go pro. Not in any meaningful way. You happy now?”

“Yes, continue.”

“Okay, what does you being right mean for me?”

“It hopefully means you are now insightful enough to understand your values better. You’re currently blindly repeating what you have done in the past. Your farm, and the industry you’re trying to create here, are in part an attempt to help your friend Jeric and his family.”

“Are you suggesting I shouldn’t help him?”

“Not at all, Arnold. Helping your friends is what brings value to your life. It is what makes you happy. It is not something you should run from or ignore. And knowing that tells you something important about our conversation. Can you guess what it is?”

I sighed, understanding what he was saying. “Classes won’t make me happy. They don’t hold the answer to the question I’m still asking myself, which is where I should go from here.”

STEP 15

DEALING WITH BIG PROBLEMS

Only a small stretch of shelves in Adoya’s massive office contained books. The rest held small models of traps, or complex components that were used as teaching aids. The trapsmith scholars had thrown a tablecloth over her desk to create a dinner table, making nervous apologies to me, because their house of scholars wouldn’t have a dining room to properly host formal dinners until it reached level 5.

I tried to tell them it was fine, but it didn’t work. The scholars were terrified of me, terrified I might make them leave. For most of them, Blackwood was the first opportunity they’d ever had to pursue their speciality with any semblance of normality. There hadn’t been such a large concentration of trapsmiths in one location in Radian for centuries. And they were scared I might take it from them.

They didn’t need to be.

I needed their help. But no amount of repeating that changed their attitude. They’d never been needed before. They were used to barely scraping by in places that barely tolerated them. They couldn’t imagine living in a world where that wasn’t the case.

The fact that most wore clean, but threadbare suits in need of replacement showed this. Master Scholar Daris was the only exception. The old man dressed like a wealthy aristocrat, and he had unashamedly said he reached level 99 through wealth, not skill. He’d inherited a fortune from his family and used it for what he claimed was his version of philanthropy, continuing the trapsmith scholars’ existence.

He’d given all eight scholars at the table the experience they needed to reach their first threshold and taught them what they’d needed to know to become trapsmith scholars. If he hadn’t, there wouldn’t be any trapsmith scholars left in the kingdom. Instead, the nine people in front of me represented the majority of their small community.

My plate was piled high with roast beef and vegetables slathered in gravy and butter as we discussed their problems while we ate. The biggest problem was the Academy of Law. The Academy of Law wanted to poach the trapsmith scholars’ research opportunity.

I wiped my mouth on a napkin. “So, you don’t have the manpower to study my trap system properly, but you don’t want me to allow the academy scholars to study it either, because it’s too important an opportunity for your class to waste.”

Adoya nodded, having to look up to meet my gaze, as she chewed a piece of beef. “There is something important about what you discovered. Your method generates a higher experience return than anything else trapsmiths have at their disposal. It indicates that the trapsmith class is fundamentally linked to the farmer class.”

“All human classes are fundamentally linked to the farmer class,” Daris said, his voice quick and cheerful.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, but Landlord Arnold may not.”

I sighed. “The system is designed to generate magic. The human system predominantly does this through farming. The other classes are all there to assist the farmer class in this capacity. Adoya believes that there is a link between the farmer class and the trapsmith class because my method causes both to generate a large amount of experience. In the past, this has been considered to be a powerful indicator that you are doing something the system wants you to do.”

Daris blushed with embarrassment. “My apologies, Landlord Arnold. I was led to believe you are ignorant of many aspects of our world.”

“I am, so it’s better to assume I don’t know something than that I do. Adoya has a better understanding of the extent of my knowledge, which is why she left out certain details.”

All the scholars nodded.

Adoya stared at her empty plate, and then at the trays in the middle of the table piled high with food, before pushing her plate away. She wasn’t even five feet tall, but she ate more than I did, except on days where I exercised, so her turning down seconds was her way of being polite.

Adoya wiped her mouth and put down her napkin. “As I was saying, there is something important about your method. Quilly is very close to reaching her second threshold. I believe when she does, she will gain access to a new method for passing through the second threshold. And the discovery will give Daris the opportunity to pass through his fourth threshold.”

Daris scowled, chewing faster so he could swallow. “I haven’t agreed to this, Adoya, so don’t speak to Landlord Arnold like this is the path we will take. You are a far better trapsmith scholar than I. If anyone should take it, it should be you.”

Adoya scoffed. “I have a house of scholars, owned by someone bearing the crown’s mark, built in a village that will grow our world’s first trap-based industry, an industry which is set to supply a large portion of the kingdom. I have my method for passing through my fourth threshold. And the boon my method gives is more valuable than the one offered to you.”

“You’re chasing a foolish dream. There has never been a fully-realised trapsmith house of scholars. The requirements are monstrous.”

“Have you done the math, Daris?” Adoya asked.

Daris shook his head.

“You should. It is not as much of a dream as you believe.”

“Back to the topic at hand,” I said. “You want me to deny the academy’s scholars’ request to study my method, even though you can’t fully study my method with your limited number of trapsmith scholars.”

“It is the greatest opportunity for the trapsmith class to study that I have received in my lifetime,” Daris said. “It is not something I wish to lose. I will pay you for each discovery we make as if you sold it to the Academy of—”

“Money will not persuade him, Daris,” Adoya said, interrupting him.

“I’m pretty sure it will,” I said. “How much are we talking here, Daris?”

Adoya waved Daris away, stopping him from replying. “Arnold, making discoveries is a way to level a house of scholars, but most classes are so well-studied that they don’t have the opportunity that we do here. The first significant discovery we make, like when Quilly gains a new method for passing through her threshold, will cause this house of scholars to gain a level. Daris passing through his fourth threshold will yield another. If we discover ten lesser discoveries, such as new promotions, it will receive another two levels. If we can make those ten lesser discoveries, then we will have ten methods for trapsmith scholars to pass through their third threshold, which will give us another level. These levels are important.”

“Why?”

“Because the simplest way to level a house of scholars involves people with that skill or class gaining experience in that village, town, or city. It only requires a million experience for the first level, but it increases tenfold for each following level. If we had to use this method to gain all ten levels to stabilise this house of scholars, we would need a quadrillion trapsmith experience.”

“Is that even possible?”

“No,” Daris replied.

“That’s why we need this opportunity,” Adoya said. “Without the ability to study your method, we can only get this building to level 7. So do you see why it’s so important you don’t allow the academy access?”

I did.

* * *

“You are turning down a very generous offer, Landlord Arnold,” Zector said later that night before taking a swig from his tankard.

I shrugged, leaning closer to hear him over the noise that filled Gretel’s inn. “It was pointed out to me that there is almost no way for my trapsmith house of scholars to stabilise without the potential discoveries that might come from studying my method. No amount of money can replace the lost opportunity.”

Zector raised his tankard to me in a salute, wiping foam from his beard. “I applaud your dedication to your scholars. If your gamble works, you will be leaving the kingdom of Radian a legacy. And I, for one, thank you for taking the risk.”

“Why make the offer, then?”

“It’s my job.”

* * *

Quilly was my retainer, not my employee, which meant that I had to deal with her if there was a problem. I couldn’t hand it off to Jeric to fix. I met Quilly in one of the empty offices in Adoya’s house of scholars the following morning. There was no furniture aside from a pair of chairs, and neither of us was interested in sitting.

Quilly looked like shit. Her hair was knotted; her eyes, bloodshot. Adoya had said she was having a hard time, but I hadn’t expected it to be this bad. The glare she was giving me contained so much open hostility that I unconsciously took out my flask and swallowed several large mouthfuls.

“Fuck you!” she shouted at me. “I know why you’re drinking, you pamby-assed pretty boy. You’re just trying to loosen me up with your damn happy ability before you bend me over the workbench and stick it in the wrong hole.”

Playing nice with Quilly, when she was in one of her moods, never got me anywhere. And she was already angrier than I’d ever seen. Right now, she was about as angry as a rattler at a Two-Step. “What the fuck is your problem, Quilly?”

“My fucking problem is I’ve got a talking rectum for a boss who invited every dick-for-brains trapsmith in the kingdom to come and take away my fucking experience.” Quilly suddenly burst into tears, rage-crying. “Fuck you.”

“Stop being a little bitch.” It was probably the worst thing I’d ever said to someone that was crying, but I didn’t know how else to deal with Quilly. “You have a six-month head start on those assholes. If you can’t beat them, you aren’t as hot shit as you think you are.”

“Fuck you!” she shouted back through tears. “One mind can’t out-think a hundred.”

She wasn’t thinking rationally. From what Adoya had told me, she hadn’t been sleeping or eating right. She wasn’t taking care of herself. She was burning the candle at both ends and had hit the wall. She was my retainer. She knew I was here to make her take a break and was having a meltdown. “So, they’re all out there working together against you?”

“Fuck no. Those assholes hate each other.”

“So, then it’s not you against a hundred others working together. It’s a fucking free-for-all. Pull the stick out of your ass and beat them with it.”

Quilly’s mouth dropped open. The tears didn’t stop flowing, but she was clearly stunned. “Fuck, that was a good line.”

I paused, repeating what I’d just said in my head. “Yeah, it was.”

She quickly got over her surprise. “Fuck your good line. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Those assholes not working together doesn’t mean anything. There are so many components and different traps that I can’t beat them all. They are going to take away what I’ve created, piece by piece.”

I stared at her, stunned for several seconds. “Are you seriously trying to keep the whole fucking system as your designs?”

Her face turned bright red. “It’s mine. I fucking made it!”

“No, you damn well didn’t!” I shouted back, suddenly furious. “I made it! I risked my neck and almost died making it. I didn’t see your ass staring down a troll with only a pitfall, a spike fall, and a few swinging logs between you and it. I didn’t see you running out of a fucking burning barn with a dozen dead cyclopes left behind you. I did all of that. You just took what I made and improved the fuck out of it. So stop the pity party, stop throwing a tantrum, stop trying to keep the whole fucking system to yourself, and get some fucking sleep and take a bath. Maybe after you have, you will realise you don’t need to keep the whole fucking system to yourself, since the fucking pitfalls account for literally two-thirds of all the experience the barns generate. If you can secure those, you can let the others fight over the scraps.”

Quilly didn’t hear a word of it. “Go dance in one of your barns, prick.”

“Fine, you want to be an asshole, I can be one too. You’re my retainer. You work for me. So this week, your job is sleeping half the day and spending the other half in Gretel’s inn drinking. I’ve got the fucking tab. And if you haven’t sorted your shit out and toned your ass down by the next week, I’m going to give you another week to relax. Using this building isn’t a fucking right, Quilly. It is a privilege. I’m more than a little grateful for everything you have done for me, but you were just the best option available at the time, and none of what you’ve created is irreplaceable. People’s lives are on the line, and I’m not going to take inferior work just to keep you happy. This isn’t your baby. This is mine. Get that through your fucking ego, and get out of my sight and out of this building.”

Quilly was literally heaving, red-faced with rage, tears pouring down her cheeks as she glared at me.

“Fuck off, Quilly. I’ll see you in a week.”

Quilly rage-screamed. It looked like she was about to attack me based on how tightly she’d balled her fists. Then she screamed again, and then turned and ran out the door.

I grabbed one of the chairs and slumped into it, watching the entrance in case she came back with a knife. I could have handled the situation differently, but I honestly didn’t think it would have been the right move.

Quilly had more anger than was healthy. Even when she was happy, she was abrasive. And I didn’t know how to deal with her politely. The only times she listened while worked up was when I was an asshole back to her. She was like those guys who didn’t know when to stop unless someone punched them.

A minute later, Adoya walked through the door, frowning.

“I guess you heard that,” I said.

“It was hard not to,” Adoya said.

“I banned Quilly from the building for a week. Is that something I’m allowed to do?”

Adoya nodded, walked over, and sat in the other chair. “Quilly is a client. You may ban clients. However, if you try to ban one of my scholars, I will yank on your ear until you learn your place.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

“I try to help.”

“I handled Quilly wrong, didn’t I?”

Adoya shook her head. “You were heavier-handed than someone more experienced might have been, but she needed to stop. She was hurting herself.”

“You warned me it was bad, but that was worse than I imagined.”

“Quilly has always had an ego, which has always been her biggest problem. She was my best student while she was training, but she was not the best student I ever trained. She’s never had to compete with someone better than her, so when her aunt looked at her design for your swinging axes and improved it in a single afternoon, she didn’t take it well.”

“She’s upset, because her aunty came up with a better design for the swinging axes?”

“She’s upset because she might miss out on the greatest leveling opportunity of her life. There have been many improvements in designs while you were gone. Almost all of them have come from her relatives. Quilly took each improvement personally and has created several improvements of her own, but that hasn’t stopped her from succumbing to the stress.”

I really needed Fitz.

This was all new information and stuff I certainly should have known.

“Are we using any of the improvements?”

“Not yet. I want to give her family more time to come up with other improvements. There’s little point in changing one week only to change again the following. For now, your current system is sufficient, but it will change before you go wide.”

“What do you think I should do about Quilly?”

“Nothing you haven’t already done. This is an opportunity for her to grow, an opportunity for all trapsmiths to grow. She will either take advantage of this opportunity, or she will squander it. That’s on her.”

STEP 16

IN TIMES OF CRISIS, LOOK TO YOUR FRIENDS

I reached over and removed the drop bar, unlocking the door so Jeric could enter. My friend hadn’t seen his family in months, so I’d volunteered to take his shift in the manual barns. The quiet solitude of the small, concentrated, granite control room was exactly what I needed to think.

Ranic had asked me to find a long-term goal, something I could pursue to give my life meaning. I’d spent a great deal of time contemplating, but the closest I’d gotten to a tangible goal was accepting that I wanted to be a better man than I was before. I didn’t know what that looked like, but I knew what it didn’t look like.

It didn’t look like a spoiled man-child who lied to himself because he wasn’t willing to face the truth. It didn’t look like an entitled prick who believed he deserved better and blamed the world for not seeing who he thought he was. If I could fix those problems, I would be closer to the person I wanted to be. But it still wasn’t a long-term goal.

That eluded me.

That and a class.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t pin down a class. After talking to Salem, the reason I couldn’t settle on a class made sense. I’d been expecting them to speak to me. I’d expected one to basically tell me, ‘This is who you are,’ but that’s not how classes worked. Not for me, at least. Classes were tools. They were something that would help me do what I wanted, but the problem was I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Yes, I wanted to grow my farm and help people, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to pursuing more classes just to help that along. It was going to take me years to get out of the farmer class. Doing the same for others was an enormous commitment. An enormous commitment I wasn’t sure about. Because trying to figure out what I wanted from life was hard.

I used to think I wanted a job that didn’t require me to wake up before noon, but that was because I wasn’t a morning person. The more endurance I gained, the less sleep I needed, and the earlier I woke up. So, a job like that wasn’t as important anymore.

That was just one of many changes I’d experienced. There were plenty of others. When I put them all together, I didn’t know who I was anymore. And if I didn’t know who I was, then how could I know what I needed?

It was maddening.

Jeric opened the control room door, shook his head at the dark interior, and hung his lantern on the hook so he could drag his chair inside.

“I gave you the week off,” I said, shuffling my chair over to make room.

Jeric put his chair down beside me and then folded into it, chuckling. “I barely convinced my wife to let me stay home last night. If I tried to miss out on so much experience two days in a row, she might’ve dragged me here.”

I scratched the back of my head. “I didn’t consider that.”

He leaned over, closed the door, replacing the drop bar. “I’m aware.” He turned back to me. “My wife tells me you’ve replaced me.”

I smirked. “I haven’t replaced you.”

“So you haven’t hired a master administrator named Fitz?”

“I have, but he’s not replacing you. I’d describe it more as an upgrade, since he’s better than you in every way.”

Jeric laughed. “Isabelle said that same thing. Apparently, you’re far better informed than when I tried to do so.”

“It’s one of his many talents.”

“Good. You need someone like that. Organising you is a full-time job.”

“Fitz doesn’t think so. He considers me to be barely any trouble.”

Jeric laughed harder. “Having one of the most skilled administrators in Radian describe keeping you informed of your interests ‘as barely any trouble’ is not something to brag about.”

“Well, I haven’t captured another giant or invented a new method for gaining experience recently, so I have to brag about something.”

“And being a minor annoyance was the best you could come up with?”

I laughed. “It’s been a slow month.”

Jeric shook his head. “Didn’t you kill an ogre in here last night?”

“What’s your point?”

“Most wouldn’t consider that a slow month.”

I glanced out the small window, looking at what appeared to be a perfectly normal barn, except for all the areas my interface had covered with red hazard highlights. There were eighty yards of death between where we sat and the entrance. “These barns require a small army of monsters to overrun. A single ogre is about as dangerous as a rabbit. It’s not worth getting excited about.”

“You used to be enthusiastic about these buildings.”

“I could improve them back then, so it was fun trying to work out fresh changes. I’m only qualified to give suggestions now.”

Jeric paused, thinking over what I’d said. “Is that a problem?”

I shook my head. “No, but operating these barns isn’t the challenge it used to be. Now, it’s just a job. And it feels kind of like I’m wasting my time here.”

Jeric frowned and then nodded. “You are.”

I felt my eyebrows rise.

“What? Did you expect me to disagree?”

“Yes.”

Jeric sighed. “Arnold, when you’re the only person who can do a job, it is vital that you do so. These barns wouldn’t exist without you and the insights you brought from your world. You’ve created something wonderful, but you have also taken it far enough that those around you can take it the rest of the way without your input.”

“So, I should do what?”

“You should move on. My wife informed me you have dozens of designs for technology from your world. Dozens of creations only you can bring to Radian. The reason you feel you are wasting your time here is because you’re vital somewhere else.”

“What if I’m not ready to move on? What if I want to see this through to the end?”

Jeric nodded. “Then take this job seriously and go help someone who actually needs your help.”

* * *

Farmer Marsh reached for the lever to release a swinging axe, trembling with fear. I caught his wrist before he could grab it, holding tight. Marsh was a few inches shorter than me, but stocky, layered with muscles from heavy farmwork, so it took everything I had to stop him from pulling the lever.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down.

Jeric had told me Marsh had been twitchy ever since a fully grown komododile charged through his barn and almost reached his control room. He wasn’t the only one. Almost every member of the three families who’d stayed in Blackwood and had agreed to operate my manual trap barns was like this.

It was mostly my fault. I hadn’t been able to ease them into it, like Lenlin, Manson, and Pel. They’d been thrown into the deep end without being taught how to swim. And months of dealing with monsters had worn down even the best of them.

Marsh swallowed and pulled his hand away from the lever. “It’s in the barn.”

The troll lumbered towards the goat pen, hugging the walls for cover. It couldn’t see anything dangerous, but the barn undoubtedly smelled like death, having killed dozens of monsters since it was rebuilt. So it was wary to the point of being overly cautious. There was still no way it was going to make it to its target. It was pure luck that it had managed to get past the first revolving trapdoor.

Marsh knew that.

“Yes, but that’s the wrong lever.”

Marsh glanced at the lever he had tried to pull, realised I was right, and blushed with embarrassment. He reached for the correct lever and pulled it.

A massive, swinging axe silently dropped from the ceiling and collided with the troll, splitting it down the middle like a piece of firewood. The two sides skittered across the barn floor, activating pressure plates, triggering other traps. Axes and swinging log spears came loose, filling that section of the barn with death.

Marsh had more grey hair than when I left to go down south. He also didn’t smile the way he used to. He’d been an easy-going sort only a few months ago, but operating the barns had changed that.

This was why I had wanted to see it through to the end. Yes, I’d gotten the trap system to work, but the operators were an entirely different story.

Marsh clenched his fists to stop the trembling. He took a deep breath, and some of the tension left him. “When are you going to replace us?”

“Another month or two.”

He sighed. “I’ll start counting down the days.”

“You’re not upset?”

Marsh shook his head. “I’ve more than doubled my level, and my children are stuck at their second threshold. We’ve got all the experience we need to live an easy life.”

“I’m happy for you.”

Marsh frowned. “You are? Why?”

“Because you deserve it. It takes guts to run these barns.”

Marsh continued to frown. “I thought you hated me.”

I was a bit surprised by the statement. “Why would you think that?”

“You kept away from me and mine after I refused to sell you my land.”

I pointed around the barn. “I was trying to hide this from you.”

“Ohhh…so what about since you hired us?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“No one’s that busy.”

I turned to Marsh, realising something. “Has no one told you what’s going on?”

“I heard about your quest.”

“No, I was talking about the 3,500 ex-militia members who will turn up with their families over the next month and 2,500 people I’ve hired to help start a trap-building industry in Blackwood when the new year begins.”

Marsh’s eyes widened. “So you’ve been busy.”

I nodded.

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I want to see this through to the end.”

Marsh frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a good use of your time.”

STEP 17

NEVER TRY TO REINVENT THE WHEEL

The inebriated giant had spent several hours meandering around, doing all sorts of uncoordinated, bizarre behaviours before taking a day nap. Alfrion had asked me to throw a Molotov on it, while it was dozing, to see if it was unconscious or not. The giant had woken long enough to pat out the flames and then went back to its nap, showing it wasn’t incapacitated, only sleepy. It had finally woken up after the third day, spent the next day with an angry hangover, and was now more or less back to normal. With their experiment finished, the dwarves were about to leave, so I made my way over to say goodbye.

Alarm filled me as I spotted a cloud of smoke coming from the large barn near the farmhouse where they were staying. I started running, building up to the speed of a car on the freeway. The distance shrank, and I quickly had a better view of where the smoke was coming from. It wasn’t coming from the barn. It was coming from something in front of the barn.

I slowed my pace back to a walk, once I realised it wasn’t an emergency. A few minutes later, I walked around the building, expecting to see Alfrion burning rubbish or something similar. Instead, my jaw dropped as my eyes landed on a steampunk interpretation of a delivery truck.

The vehicle had six wheels and a large, iron box on the back with a long boiler in front of it. There was an open seat with a steering wheel on the side of the vehicle with a furnace a few feet in front.

“You have trucks!”

Alfrion stopped feeding coal into the furnace and looked over, face covered in soot. “This is a steam wagon. I have no idea what a truck is.”

My mind exploded with possibilities. I had seen horse-drawn trolleys in Melgrim and in the capital, and heard about theoretical combustion engines, but this was the first time I’d seen steam-powered technology. It was one of the technologies I wanted to try and bring to their world. I knew steam-powered tractors had been a thing in my world in the past, as well as steam-powered sawmills and factories. If Blackwood could bring this technology to the world, it would have made a monumental difference here. But the dwarves already had it.

My excitement diminished. If the dwarves had this technology and humans did not, it meant that something was stopping them from gaining it.

Fuck.

“Are you okay? You’ve been staring at me for a while.”

I shook my head, trying to pull myself back to the present. “Sorry, I was caught up in my own thoughts. I didn’t know dwarves had steam technology. We used it in my world a century ago, and I was hoping to bring it here. Seeing you with it forced me to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew. I have questions, if you don’t mind answering.”

Alfrion shrugged. “She’s still heating up, so I’ve got time. Ask away.”

“Why don’t humans have steam technology?”

“It’s not part of your system yet.”

I blinked and then frowned, confused by his comment. “What do you mean, yet?”

“Do you know how your royal class functions?”

“It gives the citizens of their kingdom access to classes and specialisations. As it levels, new classes and specialisations become available. The problem is all the kings are currently stuck at their second threshold. No one knows how to get through. Wait…are you saying humans can’t use steam technology because the system won’t allow us?”

He shook his head. “Your people can use some of our steam technology, but it’s not recognised as part of your system, so its effects aren’t accepted by the system. Lumber cut with steam saws will not alter size, and fields ploughed with steam vehicles will not grow crops quickly. The system allows you to purchase goods from my people that have been made in this way, but you cannot use the technology yourselves.”

Stupid system.

“Can we use steam wagons?”

“No. If you try, the boiler fire will extinguish. The transport capabilities would fundamentally change your society, which is why we believe you cannot.”

It was the sword problem, again.

This news was frustrating, but helpful. It saved me a lot of time. In the past, I might have beaten my head against this wall, trying to develop steam technology like I had planned to because I felt it should work even when it clearly couldn’t; but I wasn’t that pig-headed anymore. If the dwarves had it and humans didn’t, then it wasn’t worth pursuing, now that I knew it couldn’t work.

I sighed. “Thanks for answering my questions.”

He nodded and turned back to his work.

I made my way over to the tent, pulled back the flap, and climbed down the ladder.

“Is that you I hear coming down my ladder, Arnold?” Ririon called.

“Yeah, I’ve come to say goodbye.”

I reached the bottom of the ladder and started walking down the tunnel.

“More like you’ve come to drink my ale.”

My stomach revolted, and I had to swallow hard as I walked into Ririon’s little home. It looked different. Most of the barrels were gone, along with all but a few pillows and furs. Ririon sat reading the notebook I’d seen Alfrion writing in.

“Please don’t mention ale,” I said, holding my stomach and fighting the urge to dry-heave.

Ririon chuckled and waved me forward to take a seat. “How will I mention my parting gift, then?” he asked, eyes twinkling as he nodded to the twelve remaining barrels behind him. “Those are for you. They are the same brew I served when you first arrived.” He reached over and picked up a silver box with gold filigree inlaid in a beautiful design. “This is my true gift, though. It is my most delectable personal reserve, the pinnacle of my ability with flavour. The dwarven kings would pay you your weight in any metal you asked for the opportunity to share this bottle with you. Any dwarf of importance will recognise the box and the value of what lies within, so if you wish to make a good impression with a dwarf of stature, share this bottle with him.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He waved away my thanks. “It is another custom of my people. Anyone who comes seeking an audience should always give a parting gift. It’s not usually this extravagant, but you asked so little of me for access to the village-eater that I felt compelled to be more generous.”

“Did you learn what you wanted?”

He smiled viciously. “That I did. Our warriors now have a new weapon against our ancient enemy. I must return to my workshop and begin mass production.”

Ririon stood up, dusted himself off, and began packing away the last of his things. In less than a minute, he had everything in a rucksack and on his back. Then he handed me his parting gift.

“I’ve enchanted the box to preserve the contents, and it will only open for you. But do not open it until you wish to drink and finish the bottle in the single sitting. The flavour is delicate, and within half a day, it will no longer be at its peak. It will still be better than anything you can find in Radian, but many dwarves would turn violent if you told them you left it to sit and gather dust once opened.”

I smiled. It sounded like dwarves took their drinking as seriously as whiskey drinkers back home. Those people would slap you if you ever said you had mixed something like Johnny Walker Blue Label with Coke.

“I promise to treat it with respect.”

Alfrion called down the tunnel. “I’m capping the entrance now.”

Ririon explained how the enchantment worked until something heavy thumped into place. Then he said goodbye, tucked the notebook under his arm, stepped past me, and made his way down the tunnel.

I followed, interested in seeing how he was going to get out, without having to exit an enclosed space. Ririon reached the ladder and began to climb without using his hands. It was like watching a goat climb up a mountain.

I looked up the shaft, expecting to see the open sky above. Instead, I saw a metal box over the exit, like an airlock. It was the same shape as the box I’d seen hanging under the steam wagon. Alfrion must have backed the steam wagon over the entrance and lowered it into place for Ririon to get inside the back compartment without needing to walk above ground. Ririon climbed through the airlock, into the steam wagon, and then turned and looked back down.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Landlord Arnold. I never expected to deal with a human without fear or mistrust. I doubt our paths will cross again, but I wish you good fortune in your life and your holdings.”

I smiled and then reached into my pocket for the Uno deck and tossed it up to him. “It was a pleasure to meet you too, Ririon. You made one of my youthful dreams come true, and I will never forget it. Remember me when you play with friends!”

Ririon was smiling when he closed the door.

STEP 18

DON’T IGNORE OLD PROBLEMS

Blackwood’s quarry didn’t look like much. Purchasing it from the village interface had caused thousands of tonnes of soil and clay and an angled line of concentrated granite at the edge to vanish in a flash of light, leaving behind a gentle ramp that went down to the rock face. It took up an area roughly half the size of the village and bordered the western forests, near the location of the second reservoir, in which we were currently keeping the komododiles.

Two dozen large, enclosed wagons sat in a circle near the entrance, looking like mini mobile cottages. Awnings were stretched out towards the centre of the circle, providing shelter and making a comfortable space for everyone to live in.

Master Miner Datter stood beside me, hunched over his cane, watching the quarry. The few wisps of hair he still had blew loosely in the breeze.

He turned to the side and spat. “Where are you going?”

Rina had finally contacted us, showing interest in gaining access to one of the great boons and the profit it would eventually generate. “I’d rather not say.”

“We took your damn oath. You can trust us.”

“I trust you to do what’s in your best interests, Datter. And I trust you will only be helpful so long as it suits your purpose.”

“It was just business, Arnold.”

“Perhaps it was just business for you, but for me it was a very expensive investment in something that didn’t need to occur yet. The money I spent buying you off could have gone somewhere more important.”

Datter scowled. “Then I suppose you’re here to tell me to start pulling gems out.”

“That depends entirely on you.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. I’m running out of pits to store higher-tier monsters. I need you to make me some more.”

The number of first-tier live monsters and beasts we had in cages was in the hundreds. But Ranic had created a two-week revolving door policy where we would quickly fatten them up, slaughter them, and feed them to other monsters, so we hadn’t run out of space.

That wasn’t possible for monsters that could level past 25. Without giving them something to fight after feeding them experience, they required months of waiting to pass through their thresholds naturally. That was months where they sat around doing nothing. Months where we couldn’t empty the pits. And we were slowly running out of space.

Datter’s scowl grew. “Do you have any idea how much of a pain it is to make those? It’s mostly digging.”

“I imagine it’s significantly less fun than chasing after gems here in the quarry, but I need more pits, and you don’t want to remove gems yet. So, the choice is yours.”

Datter grumbled. “My family won’t work for free.”

“Anything they want over base you can pay from your own pocket.”

Datter gave me the stink-eye.

“It’s just business, Datter,” I said calmly.

He lost his aggression and snorted. “You used to be easier to deal with.”

“I’ve doubled my charisma since then.”

He grunted, conceding the point. “If you can get someone else to transport the dirt out of our way, I’ll convince my family to come and do apprentice work with me, but you’ll need to find masons to do the stonework. I’m not going to carve through concentrated granite so you don’t have to find a mason to do the finishing work.”

“Blackwood will have a glut of workers in a few weeks. I’ll find you enough people to help.”

“Good.”

“Now that that’s settled, I would like you to give back the jade boulder you stole.”

Datter winced. “You found out about that?”

“I did.”

“How?”

“Ava’s son likes to play in that barn and pretend that it’s treasure. He was most upset to find it missing this morning. He woke me up to complain.”

“And you just assumed it was us?”

“Blackwood is a small village, Datter. Only the guard captain is strong enough to move it without a wagon and a large team of men and horses. At least that was the case until you showed up.”

Datter sighed. “So, it was obvious.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I wished you had spoken to Jeric. He was meant to cover for us.”

I waited for an explanation.

Datter took a deep breath. “You let my family stay. Our agreement didn’t include them, and yet you haven’t kicked them out. I asked Jeric to let me turn the jade into something you can use as a way of saying thank you. It was meant to be a surprise.”

I chuckled. “Well, I’m certainly surprised.”

STEP 19

TRY TO GO NEW PLACES

Knives and forks scraped against plates, while gentle music and boisterous conversation filled the background. Rina’s palace was nowhere near as large or lavish as her twin sister’s. The great hall barely seated 200, making it smaller than some restaurants I’d hired down south. Nobles and merchants sat shoulder to shoulder, discussing everything from the recent orc cull to the excess of wool currently lying around the market.

Jeric sat on my left, having a conversation with the couple sitting across from us. Emily was on his other side, talking to the young man next to her. This left me alone with the portly gentleman on my right, who had been talking to me about ruby-red dye for fifteen minutes, a shade his company had developed that would take the dress market by storm, if he was to be believed.

Even his wife wasn’t listening to him.

The feast was a common, monthly occurrence for Rina and her allies. A way for people to catch up and share what they were doing. Everyone but the few nobles were relaxed and taking it easy. They were stuck pandering to those around them as they attempted to impress each other and gain a small amount of experience from the evening. It wasn’t anything like what I had seen at the regent’s or king’s palace, but Harfold was a small, level 2 city, near the southern border of the northern region. It was basically where Phoenix, Arizona was back home, but the climate and local flora and fauna didn’t match. Being somewhere so far from a place of power and influence lessened the experience nobles received and their drive to chase after it.

The crowd near the entrance suddenly went silent, causing the entire room to stop talking and turn as one to see who had arrived. The announcer struck the floor with his staff. Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Grandmaster Merchant Androus, with his wife Noblewoman Amelia, and their daughter Cassandra.”

“This isn’t good,” Jeric whispered.

Androus was the most attractive man I had ever seen, but that was to be expected of someone with over 200 charisma. He had a slight tan and a full head of silver hair that was combed back, with a short, dense beard to match. His face held no wrinkles, and his eyes were a vibrant grey like an electrical storm. His body was not overly muscular, but trim and fit like someone in the prime of life. The term, ‘aged like fine wine’ came to mind when I looked at him.

As my eyes left Androus, they fell on Amelia. Blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, framing a face that could not exist in my old world. Her curves only existed with computer-generated corrections. If I had to vote for the hottest woman on the planet, I would vote for her twice.

She was just as attractive as the first time I’d met her in Melgrim, when she’d been sitting beside her mother, the regent.

“We don’t know they’re here because of us,” I whispered.

Jeric didn’t comment.

My eyes moved off Amelia effortlessly, which had been extremely difficult in the past, and landed on Cassandra. She stood with her back straight, the perfect impression of a noble. There was no uncomfortable weirdness when I looked at her now, like there had been a year ago. No inability to turn away. She was undeniably the most attractive human being I had ever seen, but looking at her was like looking at art. It was undeniable beauty, without the confused feelings that had made me think it was attraction in the past. It was the same reaction I had looking at her father, only stronger.

I turned to Rina, wondering how this would play out. They were clearly uninvited guests, but they were also family. How far had her anger for her sister spread?

There was a large smile on Rina’s face as she stood, tucking a stray, dirty-blonde lock behind her ear. She looked almost identical to her twin sister, having the same dark, polished-wood gaze and stunning good looks, but without all the muscle. There was no warrior vibe from her; instead she gave the impression she was soft and approachable. “What a treat,” she said, her voice musical and overly sweet. “My favourite niece and my least favourite business competitor.”

The crowd laughed.

The man next to me snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

Rina kept smiling. “No need to scowl, Androus; you’re still family, so I’m not going to kick you out my door. Come and join my table and explain how you will attempt to undermine my businesses this time.”

The crowd laughed harder.

The guests at the head table stood up, and servants rushed forward to reshuffle their places. The party of three started making their way forward, and the music renewed with a more sombre piece. Conversations broke out around me, almost all of them directed towards the new guests.

Cassandra gave Emily a small wave as they passed the table, which Emily cheerfully returned.

Jeric waited until they were further along before leaning over and whispering in Emily’s ear, “See if Cassandra will confirm we’re the reason they’re here.”

Emily scowled, but nodded that she would.

I tapped Jeric on the shoulder and kept my voice low. “Why do you think they’re here for us?”

Jeric turned to me and sighed. “Androus is the wealthiest man in the kingdom and the fifth wealthiest in the world. He owns the entire industry of more than a dozen cities and twice as many towns. He travels with an entourage larger than this court. He never turns up at a noble’s door unannounced and alone. Not unless his mother-in-law hates someone enough to request a favour of him.”

“Well…shit.”

I didn’t taste the rest of the meal. I assumed it was as lovely as everything else I’d eaten, but I was too distracted to notice. Rina seemed to be the perfect host, laughing every few minutes, drawing Androus and her niece into the conversation. I could see them loosening up as the night went on.

The tables were eventually cleared and teleported away, opening the floor for people to dance. Half the crowd drifted to other rooms to drink brandy and discuss business. Others listened to poetry and music.

I leaned back against a wall with Jeric as handsome young men formed a line asking Emily for dance after dance. She seemed to be having fun as she twirled around the room, only stopping by long enough to whisper something to her father before going back to dancing. It was good someone was enjoying themselves.

“They’re here because of you,” Jeric whispered. “Cassandra confirmed it.”

I groaned, softly. This was the last thing we needed. “You come up with a plan yet? I can’t think of anything that might help us.”

“No. We offered everything we could just to be here. We can’t offer more without sounding preposterous.”

“So, we wait?”

“It seems to be all we can do. Either Rina will accept Androus’s offer, whatever that may be, or she will reject it because it came from her sister. There is nothing we can do or offer to change either outcome.”

“So, what should we do while we wait?”

Jeric shrugged. “I’m going to go talk to a few of the nobles and merchants to see about opening up a bit of trade for a few of their resources. You should go ask that young lady who has been eyeing you up to dance.”

Jeric gave a subtle nod, indicating a direction. I turned. The charming, young woman blushed as she met my gaze. She was very cute.

Merchant Tari

I smiled.

* * *

Being hotter than an underwear model was awesome. Tari giggled at anything I said and blushed every time I smiled. She’d only wanted the one dance before whisking me away to a side room to share a glass of wine and chat. Tari giggled on the couch beside me, eyeing me up more and more openly with every passing minute. I recognised the glint in her eyes. Tonight was going to be a fun night. I was about to ask her if she wanted to come and see the view from the balcony in my room when someone cleared their throat beside me.

I turned, ready to dismiss them, only to freeze. Cassandra stood to my right, with hands folded in front of her. I looked around and spotted her guards beside the door, telling me she hadn’t snuck off to cause mischief.

“Good evening, Cassandra,” I said cheerfully, turning back to her. I hated the girl’s grandmother with a deep, burning passion, but it didn’t extend to her or her mother. So being polite wasn’t a struggle. “Do you need help to sneak away to climb trees this evening?”

She giggled. It was an entirely different sort of giggle than Tari’s. “No thank you, Incarnate Arnold. I get in more trouble when I do it outside grandmother’s palace. I came to ask you if you could sing a song to my father.”

“Which song?”

“The funny song. The one that made me laugh when I first met you. You’ve got a lot more charisma now, so you shouldn’t sound so bad—”

She was still being more honest than she needed to be.

“—this time. I want my father to memorise it, so he can teach me to sing it when we return home. I’ve got a guitar in my luggage, if you need one.”

Her last comment surprised me. Guitars weren’t common in Radian. “You’re learning to play? I thought you hated my singing.”

Cassandra giggled. “My grandmother is making me learn an instrument, so I chose the one that would annoy her the most.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “She really doesn’t like you.”

I laughed, tempted to help her just because of that, but then my gaze travelled back to Tari. I shook my head. “I’m a little busy for music lessons, Cassandra. Can we do this another time?”

Tari gave my shoulder a playful shove. “She’s not the only one who would like to hear you sing.” Tari gave me a small smirk, but she was now eyeing Cassandra rather than me, showing me that she was clearly not comfortable around someone who had denied the regent’s granddaughter anything.

Damn it.

I plastered a fake smile on my face, hoping to save my evening. “Fine, fine, I’ll go get my guitar.”

I raced out of the room and through the palace. I grabbed my guitar from my room and ran back, only slowing once I rejoined the party. Upon returning, I found the sitting room empty, except for one of Cassandra’s guards.

“They’ve moved back to the great hall, sir. Follow me.” She stepped past me and led me back to the great hall. I knew the way, but followed behind because it wasn’t worth the hassle of pointing that out.

I’d played quite a lot of music from back home while we travelled through the southern cities. Some songs didn’t translate well, but enough did that I had a long list that had been received favourably.

As I walked into the great hall, the music faded. Cassandra stood beside the musicians, instructing them to stop. The dancers frowned and stepped back, trying to figure out what had changed and why the music had stopped. The pair of nobles who had taken up the centre position on the dance floor looked openly upset.

Rina stepped onto the dance floor. “Who stopped my music?” She spotted Cassandra next to the musicians. “Cassandra, dear, what are you doing?”

Cassandra gave Rina a big smile. “Incarnate Arnold is going to play a song from his world. I want to learn how to play it to annoy Grandmother. He’s not very good at singing, so don’t be too harsh with him.”

Rina suddenly smiled. “You know just what to say to get your way, dear. Landlord Arnold, I hope it won’t inconvenience you to amuse my court.”

I said that it wouldn’t, and I put my case down and pulled out my guitar, connecting the strap. I gave it a strum, tweaked a peg ever so slightly, and then turned to the room and gave them my best smile.

I started playing gently just to set the mood. “Sorry for disturbing everyone’s evening. The song I’ve been asked to play for you is a silly story sung by a bard from my world, called Johnny Cash. There are only three things you need to know to understand the song. Honky-tonks and saloons are taverns of ill-repute, a gun is a weapon, and Sue is a girl’s name.” Then I began to play “A Boy Named Sue,” mimicking Johnny Cash as much as I could.

The crowd frowned their way through the first minute of the song, but when I hit the middle people smiled, and then they began to laugh. By the end, a drunken merchant was laughing so hard he fell over, which was utterly hysterical to those who didn’t find the song half so funny.

Rina laughed with her court as she came to stand beside me. “That was a rather colourful song. And you were not as hard on the ears as I was led to believe,” she said, turning to look at Cassandra.

Cassandra was standing beside her father, smiling ear to ear. “He used to be much worse,” she said cheerfully.

“Well, that is clearly something of the past,” Rina said, before turning back to me. “I would hear another song from your world, if you have no objections, Landlord Arnold. Maybe something not so colourful, but upbeat and entertaining.”

If this could get me on Rina’s good side, I’d play all night. My fingers started moving as I glanced at Tari and saw her smiling. Maybe, if I played this right, I could walk away on two good sides. I met Tari’s gaze and started playing “Rumor” by Lee Brice.

* * *

A servant cleared her throat, waking me the following morning. I had to lift Tari’s arm off my head to look over, causing her to give a small snort in her sleep. I blinked twice to clear the fog, and I was suddenly as wide awake as if I’d had a can of Red Bull, one of the many benefits of high endurance.

“Can I help you?” I whispered, not wanting to wake Tari.

The servant held a silver tray with a folded card on it. “Noblewoman Rina wishes to invite you to breakfast, Landlord Arnold.”

“Inform her I’ll be happy to join her. Can you have Pergus run a bath for me on your way out?”

She suddenly smirked, eyes travelling up and down my body. “I can return and do so myself, if you would like, sir.”

Her invitation was a tad obvious and not unexpected. It was a surprisingly common offer now. I glanced at the sleeping woman and shook my head. “I’m in a bit of a hurry this morning. Maybe some other time.”

She grinned. “Certainly, sir. I’ll mention the bath on my way out.”

I climbed out of bed as she left and went to the wardrobe to select my outfit for the day. I grabbed my robe and threw it on, not wanting to give Pergus, the elderly man who took care of my rooms, a show when I walked to the bathroom. The material was soft and light, hugging my body so gently that it automatically made me cringe at how expensive it had to be.

I’d had to buy a few new outfits for my meetings with the nobles in the southern region. The changes my body had gone through when I passed through my last two thresholds were minor, shape-wise, but my old clothes no longer fit as well as they once did. I selected my black and grey outfit, something Isabelle had ordered for more serious meetings, and carried it out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Pergus took the clothes from me at the door and led me to the bathroom, then hung them up for me before leaving, knowing I didn’t enjoy bathing in front of people. I quickly scrubbed myself down and rinsed. Pergus had left me a towel on the stool beside the tub, so I dried, dressed, and checked my appearance in the mirror.

I looked respectable.

Pergus cleared his throat as I exited the bathroom and headed for the door. “Do you wish to leave a message for your companion?”

I grinned, but kept going. “Tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can manage, and she is welcome to stay around.”

Pergus nodded. “May I have a moment of your time, sir?”

I stopped walking. “Sure, what can I do for you?”

“I feel I should inform you that the woman who delivered Rina’s invitation is married. You seem like the kind of man to whom that knowledge might be important; but if I am wrong, I apologise for overstepping my bounds.”

I scowled. “It is the sort of thing I like to know. Thank you.” I turned and looked back at the bedroom door, suddenly uncomfortable. “You wouldn’t happen to know—”

Pergus smiled. “Entirely unattached, sir.”

“Thank you, Pergus. If you ever need a job, all you have to do is write to me, and you will have one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir. I believe you have a breakfast to go to.”

* * *

Breakfast turned out to be a private affair. A servant led me to a balcony where Rina sat alone at a table, wearing a dress that hugged her form in all the right places. She smirked, catching me checking her out, as I stepped onto the balcony. I couldn’t help it. She was a incredibly attractive woman.

“Noblewoman Rina, thank you for the invitation.”

“You are most welcome, Arnold. And call me Rina, I believe the two of us are going to be great friends. Have a seat.”

The balcony gave a beautiful view of the garden and the city beyond. Unlike in Melgrim, there was no massive wall separating the palace from the city. Instead, a simple wrought iron fence sat at the boundary, letting the public enjoy the garden as they walked by.

I sat in the unoccupied chair across from her. The moment I was down, servants appeared and filled the table with food. Two dozen dishes, each promising a different, delicious experience, stared back at me.

I shifted my gaze to Rina, gauging her. “What do you recommend?”

Her smirk grew. “That depends on your tastes. The star melon with honey drizzle is a sweet, light delight. If you wish for something more filling and savoury, the chestnut-coated peppered pork is a fine choice. Or, if I understand your thinly veiled double meaning, I would suggest making yourself indispensable to the region. My sister is many things, but she is primarily a good regent—not by choice, mind you. It is merely a requirement for her maintaining power. The king will happily remove her, should she fail in her duties. So if you wish to stop her from interfering, all you need to do is thrive.”

I smiled, taking the pork dish she had recommended. “That is almost entirely impossible to do without allies.”

“I would have said, ‘completely impossible’.”

“That’s because you don’t know me well enough.”

“The overconfidence of youth. How I don’t miss it. You have little idea of who you’re up against.”

“The regent—”

“Is not who I meant. My sister is persistent, cruel, and calculating, but she is not creative. I was speaking of Androus.”

“You fear him more than your sister?”

“Only because I respect his capabilities.”

“Are you going to turn down our offer without hearing it, then?”

“Arnold, there is no need to be coy. It is your offer and no one else’s. Blackwood is your village. You have it and its nobles wrapped around your finger so tightly no one can come between you. It’s a solid first step. My network can weather my sister and Androus, but that is because it is a fortress of independence. Blackwood is far from here. Helping you will not be easy. But the bribe you offered me for my assistance is not small. So I will hear you out.”

“Good.”

Her smirk grew bigger as she stood up and looked down at me. “It excites me how much my sister hates you, Arnold. And Androus is not a willing ally. She would have to have promised him something significant to get him here. What is happening is now just as much a threat to me as it is to you.” She turned and walked to the door and then stopped to look back. “My advisors and I will take the oath you require after lunch and hear your proposal as to why I should work with you, but for now, I have an unwanted guest to entertain. Good day, Arnold.”

I looked around at the empty balcony and then shrugged and dug into the meal in front of me. Free food was free food, after all.

* * *

Jeric, Emily, and I walked into Rina’s quiet room. Three days had passed since we’d explained my discovery, our deal with the southern nobles, and Blackwood’s situation to her and her advisors. She and her advisors had called me back yesterday to elaborate, but today they had informed us Rina had come to a decision.

Rina and her chief advisor smiled as we took a seat at her table. The door behind us closed, cutting us off from the world beyond. The room was plain by design, with a few paintings of mountains as the only decoration.

Rina picked up the glass of water in front of her and took a sip. “Androus’s involvement has complicated matters, Arnold. If I support you, he will move against my business interests. My advisor warns me I stand to lose 100,000 crowns over the next decade if he does. Androus will lose twice that. This sort of financial burden will cripple my growth, while only being a minor annoyance for him. However, I have good news for you. I am willing to help you thwart my sister and Androus, so long as you agree to my terms.”

“And those terms would be?”

“Very reasonable. Your discovery has created many interesting possibilities, and the bribe you offered me to pique my interests was a mere fragment of that possibility and not the most useful one. I’m not insulted by this. If you had offered more, I would have taken you for a fool before knowing what I do now. However, I now understand your position and capabilities. So to begin with, I will take all the experience you have gained through your method since capturing the giant and give you its base value in compensation. I understand your hesitance to sell the experience to the other kingdoms. The 80% tariff to take it outside of Radian is not small. However, I can get around this tariff, and doing so will make me more money this year than I will lose dealing with Androus over the next decade.”

“I need that experience.”

“No, you don’t. Your little farmer outreach program to help Emily level is quite brilliant, but it is also in the early stages. The experience you have on hand is more than enough to see you through the next year, and to maintain your oath to the southern nobles; and by the time you will need more, you will be ready to take your trap system wide, and that will generate enough experience for you to expand the program. As I told you, my demands are reasonable. Now, when you take your trap system wide, you will begin with my network, before moving on to others.”

“I will agree to your second term right now.”

She smiled. “My third and final term is also reasonable. I have cities, towns, and villages in my network. There are twenty-seven in total. When you go wide with your method, you will provide a farmer of my choosing from each of these locations with the great boon for free. I’m not unreasonable, so only every second great boon you give out will have to go to one of my people. If you agree to all these terms, I will give you access to my trade network and advise you and Noblewoman Emily on how to survive my sister.” Rina and her chief advisor stood. “I’ll leave you to think it over.”

They exited the quiet room without another word, leaving the three of us alone to discuss the offer.

“I’m impressed,” Emily said. “She managed to make you handing her a literal fortune sound almost like she was doing you a favour.”

“She is, sweetheart,” Jeric said.

I nodded in total agreement with him. “Under the circumstances, her terms are reasonable.”

“Her first term is annoying, since it will limit expanding the deal with the southern nobles,” Jeric said. “But her point about the timeframe was valid, and the wealth she can provide from buying your experience will allow a level of financial freedom you couldn’t otherwise achieve.”

“Nothing she asked for is something we can refuse,” I said. “But I’m glad we waited before speaking with her. If we hadn’t, there is no way we could have afforded her help.”

“So, you’ll accept her terms?”

“It’s not like I have any other choice.”

* * *

After signing the contract, Rina gave us a one-week crash course on how to keep the regent at bay. It mostly revolved around making yourself independent and profitable, something which was now much harder to do now than it had been when she had done so. If Blackwood generated significant taxes and there was no road to undercutting us financially, the regent would be forced to back off.

Rina had no advice for getting the regent to withdraw her idea about halting Blackwood’s level progression until the village land price stabilised. The regent’s offer to the king was her doing her job correctly, and that wasn’t something we could stop without going to the king directly. As far as Rina was concerned, the regent had won that fight. It was up to us to make sure she didn’t win the others.

The problem was, making Blackwood independent would be impossible. You couldn’t do that with a single village. We needed a network, like hers. And that was going to take a lot of work.

Rina took a sip of wine and sighed. “My sister is not that simple, Arnold.”

The four of us were lounging on a balcony that overlooked the garden, watching the wagons and carriages pass by outside the palace limits.

“You are correct in thinking she is a warrior first, but you are wrong in assuming she prefers male tactics for dealing with problems. She is a student of human behaviour, because she doesn’t feel the way others feel, so she must mimic it to fit in. She uses aggressive, confrontational, masculine actions when she believes they are more likely to be successful, and the more delicate, indirect, feminine methods when the alternative is a better fit. She thinks of each of these as weapons and will use the appropriate weapon for each circumstance.”

“She sounds like a functional psychopath.”

“I’m not sure what that is.”

I described it to her.

Rina laughed. “No, she is not that. The clerics would have caught it if she were.”

Emily looked at me with concern. “That’s not a real thing, is it?”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t met one person with a genetic mental disorder since I’d arrived. There were people, such as Wendell the village drunk, who had trauma they couldn’t get past, but that was different.

“It was real where I come from.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is.” I turned back to Rina. “So, the best course of action is to minimize our openings for her to attack.”

“Yes, stick to ventures that are low-risk; or alternatively, ones that are extremely difficult for her to manipulate. Make friends with individual merchants, not guilds. The power structure of a guild frequently shifts, so building up a friendship with a few of its members can quickly become pointless when they’re removed from power.”

“But I need to build infrastructure fast, and there are no independent building companies that far north.”

“Throw money at the problem, then,” she said.

“We tried,” Jeric said. “They refuse to commit with the giant present, and we have thousands to house.”

“Use a temporary solution, then. Tents may not be the most comfortable accommodation, but they will suffice until you can make other arrangements. I can buy what you need with a modest mark up for my assistance.”

I got the feeling modest meant we were going to be screwed rather than ruined, but I kept that to myself. I had heard what she was like before coming here, so there was no point in complaining about it being true.

I glanced at Jeric and raised an eyebrow, asking him if I should accept.

He frowned slightly, and then nodded.

“I’d appreciate that, Rina.”

Rina smiled and turned to Emily. “Have you enrolled at the Academy of Law yet?”

Emily shook her head. “I was hoping to wait a year.”

“I thought so. While it normally isn’t an issue for a young Lord to postpone their studies after turning eighteen, my sister might use that against you, offering to mentor you personally. She can force the matter if you have no prior arrangements.

Emily paused. “You think she would?”

“My sister uses every weapon at her disposal. Tying you up for the next half a decade, in a situation where you receive poor education, would both affect you personally and your family by extension. Her goals would be to alienate your family from Arnold and weaken Blackwood.”

Jeric scowled, not liking the idea of the regent going after his daughter again.

“I’ll consider it,” Emily said.

Rina accepted her word and moved on. “The first decade will be the most difficult, but it is by no means impossible to overcome. Creativity and her need to control everything have always been my sister’s weaknesses. Mundane businesses she can always study, learning how to crush her opponent from others who have done so, but anything new and unexpected is difficult for her to react to. I expect she will apply pressure to your farming interests, but these other creations you wish to bring to our world will be more difficult for her to overcome, because your incarnate nature will make them more interesting. She will most likely try to keep you from outside markets, making shipping difficult and distribution a nightmare. Don’t expect the merchant guilds to carry your goods for you. Start looking for ways to sell directly to your customers. Focus on small, high-profit items; otherwise, the cost of shipping will bleed you dry. And don’t establish friendships with moderate to large independent merchants, either. Look for small but wise independent merchants you can help grow into wealthier ones, whose future profit will depend on your goodwill. Smart merchants rarely betray those that they depend on, unless you don’t show them respect.”

“That isn’t going to be easy.”

Rina scoffed. “My sister has more wealth and power than the King of Lunar. Of course, it’s not going to be easy. But you don’t want easy. You want to fight the beast in its own den.”

“I’m not moving my interests out of Blackwood.”

“Your sentimentality is a weakness my sister will exploit.”

STEP 20

MOVING FORWARD

Rina’s instructions offered us a way forward. It wasn’t without obstacles, or cost, but it was something that might eventually work, if we were careful. Her insights into her sister and how she operated showed us the scope of what we were dealing with and the most obvious traps that lay before us. It proved to us we needed to change how we worked if we wanted to be successful.

With that in mind, Jeric changed our plans, and we stopped in Brinkdale on our way home to Blackwood.

Brinkdale was Blackwood’s closest neighbour. The level 4 village had a population of around 3,000, most of which were farmers. It had two exports: wheat and cheese. We were hoping to give it a third, but only if we could come to an agreement with the local Lord.

Lord Brenwin frowned at me across her kitchen counter as she mixed her bowl of honey cake batter. Her hair was tied back in a bun, and she wore a cooking apron over a light-blue dress. Fat, gold bands circled her wrists, jingling with every movement, as she absently made a treat for her grandchildren.

Brenwin was in her late 70s and married to a farmer. Because of this unlikely union, the first four of her five children received the farmer class, leaving the last to inherit her noble class and family title. So she had far more grandchildren than most nobles, doting upon them with her ample free time as mayor.

“Let me see if I understand you,” Brenwin said. “You want me to purchase the final two resource slots available to Brinkdale for quality specialised pine forests to produce charcoal?”

Jeric and Brenwin were old friends, helping each other whenever they could over the years. Jeric said I could trust her; so I’d told her everything we were up to without asking her to take an oath. We needed allies. People who wanted to help us, even if it was difficult. Brenwin and Brinkdale were vital to that. Everything that came in and out of Blackwood had to come through here, so we needed them on board.

I nodded that she was correct. “The owners of your existing forests were not inclined to sell to us, and we need quality goods.”

Brenwin pretended to grow faint, clutching her ample chest, dusting her apron with flour. “You’re holding my village ransom, dangling the great boon for my grandson in front of me, enticing me with the chance for my village to prosper, only to hamper that with a poor long-term investment.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “Who else is there to entice? You own most of the village.”

Brenwin’s mother had paid for Brinkdale to be established, moving out here hoping to start a legacy for her family. That legacy never really got off the ground. But it still gave her the title of Lord, like Emily received.

Jeric pulled his gaze from the window. He’d always wanted a bigger family but couldn’t stomach watching his children become adventurers. The controlled chaos happening outside was something he envied.

He sighed. “Brenwin, Brinkdale has nothing special to offer, resource-wise, until it becomes a city. Arnold is hampering nothing.”

“Let me be dramatic, Jeric,” Brenwin said. “I so rarely get to have any fun as it is.”

Jeric groaned in the way old friends do when they know they’re being intentionally riled up. “Brenwin, I haven’t seen my wife in weeks, and the only thing stopping me from going to be with her is your agreement on this very generous offer.”

Brenwin smiled. “Now that was dramatic.” She gave a throaty chuckle, “And very amusing. I’m willing to supply your village’s charcoal and food needs in return for the great boon. But I need something more.”

“What do you need?” I asked, more than happy to accommodate her.

It was expensive to establish new resources. And despite my offering to pay a premium for the charcoal, there was going to be almost no profit in it for her, until the forests had leveled several times.

So, her decision wasn’t a financial one, but a noble one. She was trying to help grow her village. I felt kind of bad about that. I was using her nature against her.

“I would like you to send Master Scholar Ranic here to assess my farm. If my grandson is going to have a great boon, he’ll need a farm worthy of him.”

I glanced at Jeric. “Can I make him do that?”

Jeric thought for a few seconds and then nodded.

I turned back to Brenwin. “He’s at your disposal when he gets the spare time.”

Brenwin smiled. “Good. Now, when would you like me to contact the farmers you wish to offer the boon to?”

“Immediately,” Jeric said. “We’ll be ready to go wide in less than a year, so we need to have our house in order long before that happens.”

* * *

Fitz had relocated to Blackwood with his household while I was gone, taking over half a dozen small cabins near the village centre. I’d been told by Gretel that his much-younger wife went for a short walk around Blackwood, decided she had seen enough, and took their carriage back to the capital. Fitz was devastated, barely able to focus on his work, so I’d left him behind as I worked my way down the to-do-list.

Kiln didn’t look up as I entered his overheated workshop. The shed smelled of sawdust, varnish, and beeswax, not an unpleasant combination, until you added the body odour. The building was too small for the number of bodies inside, and the bigger workshop I’d promised him was now a far-off dream, because without the help of the builders’ guilds, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

The master carpenters I’d hired down south to assist him had crammed themselves into the small space, working on making board games and furniture, preparing for when the rest of the carpenters arrived in the New Year. They were hardworking and fastidious, but they stopped what they were doing as I made my way over to his corner of the shed and added a stack of papers with new designs for furniture to the pile I’d already given him.

He glanced up. “I need your approval for some of the designs.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

He moved over to a chest in the corner, lifted the lid, and started pulling out boxes. Several of the other carpenters began clearing a table, stacking their work anywhere there was open space. Kiln walked over to the cleared area, nodded his thanks, and began laying out the pieces.

I examined his wooden versions of Battleship, Connect Four, and Master Mind. They were all extremely detailed. There was a different carving on each of the Connect Four coins.

I sighed, wondering if this was what Fitz wanted me to see. “These aren’t the simple designs I asked for.”

Kiln shrugged. “I was told by a carpenter scholar to make them more elaborate.”

“Why?”

“More experience.”

“How much more?”

“It’s a fivefold increase for twice the work.”

That wasn’t a bad trade-off, but it defeated the purpose of making them simple. “They’re supposed to be affordable entertainment.”

Kiln absently picked up a Connect Four coin and dropped it into the slot, showing how smoothly it slid down. “That’s the biggest issue. Improving their quality only raises the base price by 15%. We’ll lose money selling them at base.”

“What about after we build your new workshop?”

My crown’s mark affected everything I owned, including a business like this. Everything the workshop built would receive a 5% increase in quality and require 5% less materials to make. Those weren’t tremendous improvements, but they weren’t insignificant either.

“It still won’t be enough. But it’s hard to walk away from such a significant increase in experience, you know.”

I wasn’t going to tell him to forget the experience and chase the money. That wasn’t how things worked here. Everything had its balance. We just needed to find the right one for these games. It was why I’d hired the master carpenters.

“Do what you think is best.”

Kiln scoffed. “What I think is irrelevant, Arnold. There is only what works within the system and what doesn’t.”

“You’ll come up with a solution.”

“You have too much faith in me.”

This time I scoffed. “I’ve surrounded you with the best people I could find, Kiln. Someone in this shed can make this work.”

Kiln looked around his workshop and blushed with embarrassment. He was the least-skilled carpenter in the room, yet he was in charge. “I’m not sure if we will be as profitable as you like, but we can probably find a solution.”

“I’m not worried about losing a little profit to additional labour costs. If we turn into a good place to gain levels, then we’re not going to struggle to find carpenters willing to work here.”

Kiln winced. “As a 10% stakeholder in those profits, that pains me to hear.”

* * *

I slowed my run to a walk as I approached the northern hamlet in the late afternoon. The recently retired militia had arrived with their families, getting a free pass through the teleportation circle to anywhere in the kingdom as a retirement gift. Ranic had organised accommodation and put any spouse or child who was old enough to have the farmer class to work, to help with our food issues. So I passed hundreds of freshly cut fields, growing an assortment of new crops, before I entered the hamlet.

We built the northern hamlet in the same grid pattern as the southern hamlet, with groups of houses crowding around mess halls, bathhouses, and other public buildings. The small, concentrated granite dwellings looked tidy beside the paved roads, but none of it expressed wealth, being built on a tight budget.

Children played in the streets as I made my way through, and more than one person stopped to gawk at my enchanted overalls and hat before I was directed toward the man I was looking for.

General Gurlad sat in the corner of a crowded mess hall, surrounded by people, drinking ale and eating a thick vegetable stew with flat bread that looked like an oversized tortilla.

He looked different out of uniform: smaller, less fierce, but somehow more natural. The simple shirt he wore seemed to suit him in a way that his military uniform hadn’t, relaxing his posture and features. If you asked me to explain the difference, I wouldn’t be able to, but I felt like this was the man he was supposed to be, not the one he had to be.

The stew everyone was eating smelled delicious, making my stomach gurgle, so I joined the end of the communal line instead of going over right away. I could feel the eyes of the room on me as I waited. I tried to ignore it. The elderly woman, slowly dishing up behind the table, raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t comment as she ladled stew into a bowl and pointed to a stack of flat bread.

I said, “Thank you,” before taking a piece of flat bread the size of a platter and heading for the general’s table.

Gurlad sat shoulder to shoulder without any care. He said something as I approached, and several people laughed. But the men sitting across from him shuffled over, moving further down the bench, making room. He pointed to the empty spot before I was close enough to ask.

I thanked the people who’d moved as I sat down and smiled at the general. “General Gurlad, I’m sorry for not being here to meet your people when they arrived.”

He grunted, wiping his bowl clean with a piece of flat bread, before stuffing it in his mouth. “I’m not a general anymore. But you will use my sergeant’s rank when we talk. It will remind you I’m not here as your representative.”

His tone was hostile, but I hadn’t expected him to be friendly. That wasn’t his job. That didn’t mean I had to be hostile back, though, so I kept my tone friendly. “You’re a sergeant now?”

He picked up the jug of ale in the middle of the table and refilled his tankard. “Generals can’t truly retire without messing up certain benefits the system offers the military. So we remain enlisted, with a special sergeant’s commission and pay. And before you think that it’s a paper rank, I can walk into any army barracks and requisition a sergeant and his people, no questions asked. Not that there are any around here.”

That was kind of cool. “I hope you now understand my reason for secrecy and my stipulation that you don’t give orders.”

“I do. And I don’t take offense. It was the right call.”

My stomach gurgled again, and I took a mouthful of the vegetable stew. The robust, savoury flavour hit my taste buds. “This tastes as good as it smells.”

“I’ll tell my wife you said so.”

I glanced back at the elderly woman who was still giving out food and then turned back to the much younger- looking man in front of me, knowing they were likely the same age.

Gurlad nodded his understanding, sharing a sad smile. “We’ve been married for 63 years. I’m not ready to live without her. So I’m hoping your method is as profitable as it seems. However, you aren’t here to speak about an old man’s worries. What do you want?”

“I’d like to know if you think your people are the right ones for this job.”

His sad smile became a fierce grin. “Yes. Coming to the militia might be the smartest decision you ever made.”

“Good. Now, I’ve been toying with the idea of calling your people, ‘operators’. What do you think?”

“It’s blunt enough that even the slowest recruit will understand their job. But I’m sure you didn’t come all the way out here to ask my advice on something so simple?”

“That’s exactly why I’m here.”

Sergeant Gurlad frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know we made a mistake when we said we would take everyone who qualified, right?”

His frown disappeared, and he chuckled. “I’ve been told that those I brought with me are almost four times as many as what you were thinking.”

“And there are several thousand more on the way, which is why I’m here. We need to sort the minor problems out before they escalate into bigger problems.”

Everyone at the table laughed.

I glanced at them, trying to understand the joke. They laughed harder. “What am I missing?”

“We were discussing that when you walked through the door,” said the man next to me.

“You were?”

Sergeant Gurlad grinned. “I told you coming to the militia might be the smartest thing you ever did.”

Sergeant Gurlad began introducing me to everyone at the table. Several of them had been instructors, while others were junior quartermasters and aides. They might never have been high in the militia, but they were all used to organising groups larger than what we would have in Blackwood.

The farmer militia had nearly a quarter of a million active members, and when they weren’t fighting orcs, they were building and repairing roads, or clearing the land for villages and towns to expand into. The militia had a broad skill set, a skill set they wanted to put to use, so they didn’t get rusty.

There was a great deal around Blackwood that they wanted to change.

STEP 21

MEETING NEW PEOPLE

It took Brenwin less than a week to convince a dozen landlords from the nearby villages and towns to come to Blackwood. They agreed to move quickly for two reasons: to see a live giant, and to hear what they would have to give up for their heir to receive a great boon.

Making a trade network wasn’t going to be easy. Rina’s took decades. But she didn’t have my advantages. And my business interests weren’t nearly as broad as hers had to be. So the landlords at the party were enough to establish some autonomy if I could get them on board.

Brenwin had helped us out by splitting the landlords into two distinct groups: those that thought of farming as purely a business, and those that treated it as a part of who they were, like her husband. The first group were drinking wine in the parlour, quietly discussing trade, and the second group was in the sitting room, laughing boisterously over ale and complaining about the weather—which made no sense to me, because the Sun Serpent regulated the weather, so it was almost always perfect.

I was part of neither group, but that was by choice.

Salem had told me I wouldn’t have to go through life alone like Ranic had. I wouldn’t outlive everyone I knew. I would actually be able to take a lot of people with me. So I needed to choose those people wisely.

But talking to the sons and daughters of the landlords around Emily’s dining room table made me realise something important.

The party had been a mistake.

I didn’t care about these people. Yes, I wanted to do business with their parents. I wanted us to prosper together, but trying to see if we could be friends, because I might know them for the next two centuries, was utterly pointless. Especially the five-year-old who hadn’t stopped talking about her pony, Buttercup, since she had sat down next to me, though she was adorable, swinging her little leg under the chair beside me.

“Buttercup likes to eat carrots the most. Sometimes I try to share my apples with her, but she likes carrots more. So, one time I snuck her inside the house while mummy was in the garden, and I fed her all the carrots she could eat. She ate so many, she got this big,” she held her hands as far apart as she could. “Then she threw up on my bed and I got in trouble.”

“Have you tried dipping the apples in honey?”

She frowned up at me, still swinging her leg, clearly bored. “Why?”

“Ponies like sweets. It will make them yummier for Buttercup.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“I don’t believe you.” She jumped off the chair. “I’m going to go ask my mum. Dad says she thinks she knows everything.” She turned and pushed Fitz aside so she could make her way around the table.

I held in my laughter, grinning. “You probably shouldn’t mention that to her.”

She didn’t hear me, or if she did, she ignored me, continuing on her way.

I glanced around the table at the dozen people and fought the urge to shake my head. Few of the conversations looked genuine. The whole evening felt awkward. It was like we were speed dating. I thought about that for a second. That analogy wasn’t actually that far off from what was happening.

No wonder I wasn’t getting anywhere.

Social posturing had never been how I made friends. I needed to get my board games.

I stood, waved off Fitz, and made my way over to Emily to save her from the enthusiastic young farmer who couldn’t realise she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about their conversation as he was.

“Lord Emily, I need a moment of your time,” I said, offering her my arm.

She apologised to the young man and took my arm as she stood. “I find myself in need of a little air, Landlord Arnold. Would we be able to talk while we walk through the village?”

“That is most agreeable,” I said, overly formal.

Emily gave a small squeak, not managing to entirely stop her laughter, as we exited the dining room and made our way through the hallway to the front door.

The door barely closed behind us before Emily dropped the noble act and giggled. “You sound like a fool.”

“That is most disagreeable, Lord Emily. I am merely trying to impersonate your many suitors.”

She smirked. “None of them sound like that.”

“None of them?” I asked teasingly.

“Well, there was that one gentleman at Rina’s party.”

“You danced with him twice.”

“He was handsome.”

“And not older than your father.”

She elbowed me in the ribs hard, knocking the air from my lungs, forcing me to release an uncomfortable grunt.

“My apologies, I tripped.”

I faked concern. “You need to be more careful, Lord Emily.”

“I find myself clumsy around handsome men.”

I scoffed, knowing she was joking. “I’ll have you know I’m gorgeous, not handsome.”

Her eyes sparkled as she smiled. “I must have done it intentionally, then.”

This time I laughed. “How are preparations for the academy going?”

“I’ve been conditionally accepted. I just need to raise my rank for several aspects of lore before the start of the New Year.”

“I’m sorry you have to do this sooner than you wanted,” I said, losing the playful tone.

She patted my arm reassuringly. “It’s a small price to pay for a threshold.”

“It’s not. You wanted a chance to spend more time with your father, and you’re losing it because of me.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

That made me smile, because I could hear the honesty in her words. She meant it. I decided to change the subject before I brought down the cheerful mood any further. “What do you think of my new trade network?”

“They are dependable and hardworking, with solid farms. They will make suitable business partners.”

Emily was speaking a little too formally, which meant she was lying to some extent.

“What’s your honest opinion?”

“They’re little more than wealthy farmers and won’t ever grow beyond that, even with what you are going to offer them.”

“And?”

She glared at me, annoyed I could see through her façade. “And I don’t think they’re the right businesses to start your new trade network with.”

I grinned back. “Why?”

“Rina said you needed to work with businesses you could help grow. You can’t do that for them.”

“Why not?”

Emily squinted at me. “Are you asking questions because you don’t have a plan?”

“I have a plan, and it’s the same as it’s always been. I’m going to build goodwill with the local landlords and secure food for Blackwood. Nothing more.”

“You referred to them as your new trade network?”

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t? I mean, we will be going into business together.”

I watched the lights go on as she realised what Jeric and I were doing. “You’re using them as a distraction?”

I nodded, unashamed by my actions. “The regent’s going to take one look at my new trade network and dismantle two thirds of it with a single conversation. She can’t try to weaken so many villages and towns at once without failing in her duties, so I expect our new friends are about to receive some very lucrative business opportunities in the coming months.”

Emily laughed. “Which doesn’t matter because you never intended to build a farming empire, only feed Blackwood.”

I nodded. “Rina had a lot of success handing her sister false victories.”

“What if she doesn’t react the way you want her to?”

I shrugged. “I’m not going to hide anything from anyone. The landlords all know it’s going to be risky working with me, but that’s the nature of business. If they start to hurt, I’ll dissolve our contracts. I only need four of them, anyway.”

“Why only four?”

“Because that’s how many days it takes to travel here from Igwood. And we need to lower our transport costs if we ever want to turn a profit with anything besides my method.”

“Don’t you have to bring goods back from these places for that to work?”

“Yes. Which is why I intend to buy charcoal, copper, lime, and gypsum, along with the food.”

“Is this another one of the technologies from your world?”

“Yes.”

Emily frowned as her eyes glazed over. Her intelligence was high enough for perfect recall, and this was the expression she made whenever she was trying to remember something specific.

She finally turned to me. “There’s only one nearby village with access to the copper mine, and their Landbaron didn’t come.”

I groaned. “Don’t remind me. I’m not looking forward to leaving so soon after just getting back.”

* * *

Emily and I collected my board games from the inn, and the rest of the party went off without a hitch. The following morning, I made a formal offer, but didn’t explain how I could do so until they were willing to take an oath. They were wealthy, but not wealthy enough to pay for the great boon, so an oath of secrecy was a small price to pay for such an opportunity. By the end of the day, all had taken an oath, and more than half immediately agreed to join my network, offering decade-long contracts to sell to me in Blackwood at a reasonable fixed rate, but on the condition that food was only going to the local market. They would also help me buy and sell goods through their merchant contacts without adding a markup.

The few holdouts belonged to the largest towns that were furthest from Blackwood. They had come for a chance to see a giant in the flesh and live to tell the tale, more than anything else. They had heard enough murmurs through their merchant contacts that they knew doing business with me could be hazardous, and they weren’t quite willing to take the risk yet, even for such a large reward.

I didn’t hold it against them and left my offer open for them to join later.

Despite the large turnout, there were still a few local landlords that hadn’t shown up, so Jeric and I went to visit them in person. Going to all of them, to disguise our visit to the one we really needed.

* * *

Landbaron Varine’s skin was deeply tanned, and his hands were calloused from a lifetime of hard work. Yet the thin, elderly man somehow looked comfortable, sitting on a stool so low his knees were above his waist, while milking a goat far more quickly than should have been possible. I recognised the set of worn overalls he wore and his straw hat on his head. They were expensive magical items, designed to assist farmers in their work and very comfortable.

Fitz had spoken with him at length when he delivered my offer with the oath binder a few days ago. He felt he had taken the man’s measure, so I knew to treat him like a farmer, instead of a businessman.

One look at Varine told me Fitz was probably right. I’d never met a more farmer-looking farmer.

The goat-filled barn wasn’t much different from the ones we had in Blackwood, except his goats weren’t wild and prone to try to escape. They were just as noisy, though, bleating constantly.

“I’m not one for wasting time while the sun is up, Landlord Arnold,” he said, looking over his shoulder at where I stood by the entrance. “If you want to talk to me now, you’ve got to work. There is a spare stool over against the wall, and pails are on the bench there.”

I went and collected the items and set them up next to him, feeling uncomfortable as I lowered myself onto the too-low stool. “I’ve never milked a goat before,” I said, looking around, confused. “You don’t seem to have anything to keep the goats in place. How do I—”

“182, you’re up.”

A goat calmly walked out of the herd and stopped in front of me, side on. She gave me an unimpressed glare, and then bleated at me, before nodding toward her udder.

I’d never felt more out of place than I did in this moment. The force of personality coming from the goat was so bizarre. Seeing it try to communicate was one thing, but actually understanding her was another.

“He’s telling you to hurry up,” Varine said.

I turned to Varine. “You mean she is.”

“No, 182 is male.”

I gave Varine a sceptical look, and then leaned over to look at the business end of the goat. 182 was definitely a male. “Ah, I’m going to need an explanation here.”

Varine laughed without slowing his work. “Dairy goats occasionally produce males that lactate. They produce far less milk than the females, but if you don’t milk them, they can develop health issues. You don’t want him to get sick, do you?”

I glanced down at the goat, not sure how I felt about milking him.

He bleated at me again, sounding uncomfortable.

“I suppose not.”

If this was some sort of farmer prank, I didn’t get it at all, but the goat clearly had an udder, and seemed to expect to be milked. I looked over, watching what Varine was doing, and then tried to copy. I leaned down and grabbed the goat’s udder or teats, whatever the thing was where the milk came out of, and tried to mimic what the old man was doing.

The goat didn’t like it.

He bit me.

You have taken 1 piercing damage

“Ouch! You little bastard.”

“That’s his way of telling you you’re being too hard on him,” Varine said, through a fit of laughter.

I looked at my forearm where he’d bitten. He had barely broken the skin, so maybe I’d overreacted. I scowled anyway and leaned in to give milking him a second try.

When no violence ensued, I decided to get down to business. “What did you think about my proposal? It’s a generous offer.”

Varine sighed, showing his age. “I haven’t ignored your proposal because it lacks generosity, Landlord Arnold. I’ve ignored it because of the rift it will cause in my family. I have three sons and have already named my heir. All of my boys are hard workers and have passed through their third threshold. The opportunity you’ve offered would have to go to my grandchildren, and my son would lose his place. I promised my boys that they would all receive the same chance to inherit. And that control of the farm would go to the one most suited to it. I’ll not break my word, so I can’t accept your offer, no matter how generous.”

I raised an eyebrow at Varine. “Is that seriously why you’ve been ignoring my letters? Why I had to spend a day in a slow, bouncy carriage to come here? You realise you are being foolish, right?”

“I understand you are angry.”

“I’m not angry with you. I’m annoyed.”

That annoyance meant I wasn’t as focused on the work in front of me as I should be, and 182 promptly bit me.

You have taken 1 piercing damage

I glared at the goat. “Don’t make me buy you and turn you into a goat curry.” I turned back to Varine. “And you, you’re the richest man in town. You own a farm manor and the maximum amount of land a village can hold without becoming a town. Just buy more land and give it to your grandchild. When your heir dies, they can take over both farms and merge them together. You don’t have to wait to expand your holdings until after you’ve gained a second-tier farm manor.”

Farm manors were incredibly useful magical buildings that let you get around the farmhand class limitation and the need to have all the fields on your farm be next to each other. But like all magical buildings, they had their limits.

A first-tier farm manor, like the one I wanted to build, could only connect to as many fields as a village could hold, and it required you to level the manor to its maximum to do so. Once you reached that limit, you had to upgrade it to a second-tier farm manor, using one of the magical building slots at the town level. Jeric had told me Varine wouldn’t be allowed to do that until after the town was level 5, and it was currently level 3.

Varine blushed. “Um, I didn’t consider that. My wife was always the one who managed our business. She’s the reason we are so successful. I was always more focused on work, because I never understood that side. My boys inherited her head for business, but I never mention your offer to them because I was afraid that mentioning the boon would cause family strife. I was afraid that my family would want to disinherit my heir, because he’s already through his second threshold and can’t obtain the boon. If I had mentioned this to them, my sons would have likely suggested exactly what you proposed.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself from saying something I shouldn’t. I’d spent over a week going around all the holdouts, talking to them and trying to convince them to join me, just so I could have a chance to convince Landbaron Varine to work with me. I needed him. I’d been ready to play hardball. I’d been ready to make more concessions.

I was not ready to know the reason he was holding out was because he hadn’t thought it through properly. I’d wasted so much time for something so trivial.

“Ah, you can stop milking 182. He’s done and becoming quite upset with you.”

The moment he said it, 182 bit me.

You have taken 1 piercing damage

* * *

A few days later, our carriage stopped outside Blackwood’s gate in the early afternoon. Our trip was a resounding success, but I was still frustrated. It seemed like a lot of effort to achieve something so simple. There had to be a better way to do this. And if there wasn’t, I certainly wasn’t the right man for this job.

“I apologise for the holdup,” called the driver, “but the guard signalled me to stop.”

Brill’s voice rang out. “Routine inspection. This won’t take long.”

Fitz frowned. “Is this normal?”

“No,” Jeric and I said together.

Brill’s face appeared at the window a moment later. and he wasn’t smiling. “A whole raid team of adventurers turned up this morning.”

Jeric frowned. “We didn’t see them on the road.”

“They came through the forest, sir. And demanded Captain Wallis let them onto Arnold’s land to slay the giant. The captain denied their request, but they seemed to have expected that. They’ve brought a judge with them. The judge can’t do anything until he sees Arnold, but he’s going to hold a summary court in the village square the moment he does. Jeric, I’ve been instructed to tell you not to interfere; and Arnold, you need to follow Lord Emily’s lead.”

“What is she planning to do?” Jeric asked.

Brill looked to the side and made a face before looking back. “I apologise for holding you up, Nobleman Jeric,” he said, a little too loud to be natural. “I didn’t recognise the carriage. You can carry on.”

Brill turned and walked away, so I stuck my head out the window to see what had upset him. There were five armed and armoured adventurers walking towards us. “Shit. Driver, take us to the village square.”

STEP 22

SOMETIMES, YOU JUST NEED TO PHONE A FRIEND

The carriage stopped outside Emily’s gate, and the three of us climbed out to see a crowd already waiting for us in the village square. Gretel had dragged tables outside the inn and was serving food and drink to dozens of operators, scholars, and farmers while they waited for the show to start. Jeric barely spared the sixty adventurers or anyone else a glance before walking down the path and into the manor.

Fitz leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Don’t behave rashly. A judge is beholden to the law.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t lie, either. Judges can tell.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s an ability they have.”

The judge he was talking about was a handsome, middle-aged man who reeked of wealth. He had a black, pencil-thin moustache and oily, slicked-back hair. He wore a blue robe, bearing the Sun Serpent’s mark across the chest, but his broad shoulders and muscular body, along with how he arrived, suggested that he was an adventurer with the subclass rather than a pure judge.

Judge was a specialisation of the oath binder class in the same way the lawyer class was. But that was literally the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I was going to have to fix that, but not today.

I stared as he calmly walked over, focusing so hard that his name appeared above him.

Judge Lodin

Lodin stopped before me. “Landlord Arnold, I realise our meeting is unorthodox, but so are the circumstances you find yourself in.”

“And they would be?” I asked carefully.

“Very odd. A grievance has been brought against you by the Averin Adventurers’ Guild, as they attempt to fulfil their duties. I was pre-informed of their intent and their suspected difficulties in executing that intent and agreed to accompany them here, because of the unique nature of the situation. Will you allow the Averin Adventurers’ Guild access to your land in order to slay the giant that endangers this village?”

I glanced about, looking for Emily and Jeric, and saw no sign of either of them. I turned back to Lodin. “I will not. And I disagree with their assessment of the danger this village is in. The giant has been safely contained for months.”

Lodin paused. “It’s been here for months?”

“Yes.”

“That is hard to believe.”

Something was off. He should have known this. “Yet, you can tell I’m not lying about this.”

He nodded. “I’ll see if the other party knows of this. Excuse me.”

I watched him walk over to the group of adventurers and start talking to a rugged-looking man in steel plate armour.

“He should have known that,” Fitz said.

“Maybe they didn’t tell him that part.”

“Any judge worth his robe would gather a second opinion at this point,” Fitz said carefully. “His next actions will be telling.”

Lodin returned to us a few minutes later. “They wish to argue their case, and I am willing to listen.”

* * *

We didn’t go somewhere private. Minor trials were public matters, so had to be held publicly. Usually that was in a courthouse, and anyone could attend, but Blackwood didn’t have one, so the village square was used instead.

I stood before the growing crowd, forcing myself not to scowl, as Rinnle, the guild master of the Averin adventurers’ guild, explained to Judge Lodin why his guild needed to be allowed onto my farm to kill the giant.

Isabelle now stood beside Judge Lodin as he listened to the accusation, remaining strangely impassive through the process.

Rinnle smirked at me as he loudly said, “Someone needs to think of the children. Landlord Arnold is putting them in danger. My guild can keep them safe. Yes, it has been contained until now, but if the beast gets free, the loss of life will be disastrous. That is why I request a summary judgement to allow my guild access to his farm.”

Lodin kept his face straight throughout the farce. We already knew what his answer would be. We were just going through the motions. This whole thing stank of corruption. And Fitz was getting more and more tense.

“Your reasoning is sound, guild master,” Lodin said. “Landlord Arnold, do you have anything to say in your defence?”

I did not.

But it turned out someone else did.

Emily’s front door slammed closed, filling the silence left by Lodin’s question. The crowd turned to stare as Emily made her way down the path in front of her manor. Hamlin stepped around her and opened the gate for her with a bow. There was enough space for her to get through, but the crowd instinctively parted, making a large corridor, giving her an impressive entrance.

Emily had dressed for the occasion, wearing sombre colours, and an expression that suggested she could crush you without difficulty. The expression made you forget her age and just see her station.

She stopped beside me and inclined her head in a small bow. “Landlord Arnold, may I invoke something on your behalf?”

Judge Lodin scowled, speaking before I could. “This is a court matter, Lord Emily. You have no power to interfere, as you’re not an active Lord.”

“I am not interfering, Judge Lodin,” Emily replied sharply. “I am simply making sure that the law is administered correctly within my domain and coming to the defence of a friend through legal process.”

“You have my permission,” I said.

The moment I finished speaking, Emily looked up. “I invoke the crown’s judgment on behalf of Landlord Arnold, requesting this case be taken before a high judge or full court, as the matters surrounding this case are not minor even though the request is.”

Lord Emily of Blackwood wishes to invoke the crown’s judgement on your behalf. Will you allow this?

Yes/No?

Lodin had gone pale the moment she finished speaking. That was enough for me. I’d read the handbook on everything my crown’s mark allowed me to do, so I knew what invoking the king’s judgement meant. If the king deemed his judgement wasn’t necessary, my mark would lose a level.

I selected, Yes.

Trumpets filled the air, and a pillar of light appeared before me. Several seconds passed, then an illusion of the king stepped out of the light.

His presence was like standing at the foot of a mountain, as the sun hides behind it, casting you and all that surrounds you into shadow. Regal didn’t begin to describe his bearing, but the greatest stag that stood as lord of the forest and the strongest lion who ruled the endless plains would both bow at his feet.

His age existed in the moment where power and wisdom met. He towered over me at six and a half feet, with broad shoulders and massive arms. His chestnut hair was cut short, and he still had the densest beard I’d ever seen on a man. His gaze took in every detail of the village square with a single glance, and I felt the moment our eyes met, because my heart fluttered and my legs grew weak.

The urge to bow gripped me, and my body bent willingly, without the need for me to consciously do so. Every cell in my body still told me this individual deserved it, no matter how high my attributes might have risen. The entire crowd felt the same as everyone dropped into a bow together.

The king didn’t have everyone immediately rise, like I had seen him do in the past. Nearly a minute went by before he spoke. “You may rise,” he finally said, voice commanding, warm, and loving as it had ever been.

The crowd rose.

The king turned his gaze on Emily and did not look pleased. She took a step back.

“The crown’s judgement is never invoked for petty squabbles,” the king said, before turning to the judge. His disapproval became a scowl, the kind that would cause entire armies to route. “On the surface, this is nothing but a trespassing case. However, it only takes a few moments for anyone to see that this is not a minor case like it appears. Landlord Arnold has captured and contained a giant for months, earning a world-first greater achievement for his village, region, and kingdom, along with ongoing rewards. And the research potential to study a living giant is also unique. These are not minor accomplishments, and though you could not have known the former, the latter was obvious. No honest judge should ever have heard this case out, knowing those facts. This case should have been brought before a high judge immediately. Captain Wallis, arrest Judge Lodin on the charge of corruption and intent to abuse the law. All present members of the Averin adventurers’ guild will travel to Melgrim, where a high judge will review their case. This case is on hold until the high judge establishes the kingdom’s legal position on the matter, and no guild may interfere with the giant unless it escapes. This is my judgement.”

There was another flash of light, and the king vanished.

The crowd started talking in excited whispers, overwhelmed by seeing the king in Blackwood, even if it was only an illusion of him.

Captain Wallis came forward with a broad smile and placed his hand on the judge’s shoulder. “On the king’s orders, I am placing you under arrest. Come quietly and I’ll let you pick out your cell.”

The judge glared at the guild master, who promptly turned and power-walked away, before turning and taking the captain up on his offer.

Isabelle instructed people to disperse as she followed the judge to the guard’s barracks, making sure everything went smoothly.

I was suddenly very annoyed.

My charisma was now well over 100. I could ignore beauty if I wanted to, but the king’s presence was just as powerful as when I was level 24. I was sick and tired of being made a puppet. I needed to find a wizard to train my mental resistance mark further.

Fitz grabbed me by the elbow. “Lord Emily has indicated she wishes you to follow her.”

I looked around and realised she was making her way back to her house. I chased after her. Hamlin kept the door open and nodded towards the parlour as I passed. Emily and Jeric were waiting for me, standing side by side, as I walked in and closed the door.

The moment we were alone, Jeric turned and hugged his daughter, picking her up and twirling her around. “I was watching from the window. I’m so proud of you. That was brilliant.”

Emily giggled and blushed, batting him away half-heartedly as he put her down. “It was Rina’s idea. I just did what she suggested.”

Jeric smiled, stretching the limits of what his features could achieve, as his pride overwhelmed him. “But it was your idea to contact her, which is exactly what a good leader should do when they have access to skilled advisors.”

Emily blushed a little redder, took a deep breath, and tried to reassert her noble face. “Arnold’s problem isn’t fixed. It’s only postponed.”

Jeric rolled his eyes. “Sweetheart, enjoy the victory. You have entrapped a corrupt judge. This is something to be proud of.”

Emily gave a small smile, glowing brighter. She was so pleased with the praise, it almost made me laugh.

Almost.

I took a seat at the table. “At least we have confirmation that trapping the giant caused the village to earn an achievement. Once the abandonment order is over, you should be able to buy a few upgrades for the guards.”

Emily squealed. “I forgot about that part! A world- first greater achievement, that’s 100,000 development points. What should we upgrade?”

Jeric gasped.

My eyes widened at the number. I knew a few things about development points, since I owned two magical buildings. Building them had generated 5,000 development points each, making the 100,000 points equivalent to 20 buildings. And that was a lot. Villages, towns, and cites mostly used their development points to gain guard marks, since the points were so hard to come by. There were bigger upgrades that could be purchased, but they cost so many points that villages had to grow into a town without spending anything to afford them.

“There are only two good choices,” Jeric said, getting over his surprise. “Either you spend 50,000 points twice to increase the number of resource locations the village can gain from our crystallized mana deposit, bringing it from two to four, or you hold off spending any points until Blackwood generates 150,000 and then purchase the Scaled Growth upgrade.”

Emily lost some of her enthusiasm. “Neither of those is something we can use now. And the second option is terrible. No one bothers with that anymore.”

Jeric chuckled. “You need to study history, sweetheart. The reason no one bothers with Scaled Growth is that no one gains access early enough. Acquiring Scaled Growth at the village stage could make Blackwood a second Ulundra.”

Emily’s eyes widened.

“What’s an Ulundra?” I asked.

Jeric looked over. “Ulundra was the most beautiful city this world has ever seen. The King of Gloom took charge of it as a level six village after a master blacksmith earned several achievements similar to your own. The greatest builders and artists descended upon the village and spent three years constructing the most beautiful village this world has ever seen; it was said to be a perfect balance between art and function. Once they were finished, the king selected the Scaled Growth upgrade and paid for the village to grow into a city out of his own pocket. Scaled Growth allowed the most beautiful village to grow when it became a town, rather than just enlarge its border. Instead of the village border expanding and leaving empty spaces behind, buildings appeared in the empty spaces, each an average example of what was already found in Ulundra. Since every building was a masterwork, every new building was also a masterwork; and so, the most beautiful city in history was born.”

I looked over at Emily. “I vote for that.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Are you going to pay for it all? Because someone has to, and I can’t afford to turn the village buildings into masterwork structures, let alone everything you own.”

I froze. “Ah, you know what? I think you misheard me. What I said was Blackwood needs access to more crystallized mana.”

* * *

Having to drop everything and go to Melgrim was the last thing I wanted to do after having just arrived back again, but I wasn’t about to ignore the king or the court case. So I was trying to get two weeks of work done in less than a day. Without Fitz, attempting it would be pointless.

I’d spoken with Adoya about the trapsmiths; checked in on a less-bedraggled Quilly, who promptly told me to fuck off while she was working; caught up with Gurlad, because the majority of the militia would arrive while I was gone again; made sure Kiln was ready to expand my table-top gaming business; and had almost two dozen other conversations of equal importance.

Sevin had managed to find a financial backer for his suffocation idea, so with the help of all the farmers directly under me, we surrounded the reservoir with wood and hay.

As the sun rose the following morning after a long, sleepless night, I put the torch to the wood-covered hay, starting the biggest bonfire I’d ever seen. The dry hay quickly caught alight, allowing the fire to easily spread. I moved around the reservoir, lighting it every few yards while the giant released deep snores below.

I threw the burning torch on the last section of wood when I was done and headed for the village. I wasn’t worried about the fire getting out of control. The grass was entirely green and covered in dew, making it extremely hard to ignite.

Fitz fell in beside me as I made my way back to the village. “I’ve organised your luggage and had it loaded onto the carriage. Noblewoman Rina has agreed to assist you in your case and will be in Melgrim when we arrive.”

“Good. Have the adventurers left?”

“Yes. Shortly before dawn. Master Scholar Ranic has informed me he wishes to travel with us. He has colleagues in Melgrim. He believes he can convince them to relocate to Blackwood if he visits them in person. He would also like to begin educating you on farming matters.”

I stopped myself from groaning.

I already had to travel at a snail’s pace because of Jeric and Fitz, but now I was going to have to do it while listening to lectures on farming. I tried to remind myself that this was something I would have to do anyway, and this was wasted time if I didn’t, but it didn’t make me any happier.

“How much will this trip disrupt our plans?”

“Less than I would have thought. You have gone a long way towards making yourself unnecessary for almost every aspect of the businesses you have. While your new projects will stagnate without you, those currently in motion should move forward well enough with you gone.”

“Good. Now, how many more meetings do I have before we leave?”

“I’ve reduced it down to eleven, but if you are willing to catch up on foot, then there are eighteen.”

No matter how much I wanted to get out of the extra work, I knew I couldn’t do that. I had too much responsibility to shirk my duties. “I guess I’ll catch up on foot.”

* * *

Just after lunch, I knocked on the door of the cabin Pavatin was working out of. The royal architect was surprisingly easy to accommodate, considering the level of prestige involved in his job. He could have claimed a room in one of the house of scholars buildings, but he had opted for something that met the minimum of his needs.

He opened the cabin door himself, scowling. “Who dares… oh, Landlord Arnold.”

Pavatin gave an awkward chuckle and scratched the back of his head, having to look up to meet my gaze. He was only a decade older than I was, but the small, wiry genius was the most sought-after architect in the kingdom.

“Sorry, I thought you might be Ava’s youngest. The boy likes to knock on my door and run, for some reason.”

“Would you like me to have a word with Ava about her son?” I didn’t mention that I was the one who taught him how to play ding-dong-ditch.

He waved the offer away. “No. It’s just a childish game, and the boy isn’t doing any harm.”

“What did you want to speak to me about?”

“I’ve finished my design for your farm manor and submitted the plans to the royal builders. Most of the work will be done outside of Blackwood and installed here when finished, so I won’t be taking over Arnold’s Hill to begin preparation anytime soon.”

“Can I see the design now?”

“No.”

I sighed. “Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

“Fine. Is there anything else you need to talk to me about?

“Nobleman Jeric mentioned that where you come from, there were freestanding buildings over ten times the height of Arnold’s Hill. Would you be willing to share how these buildings were constructed, to the best of your knowledge?”

“I wouldn’t.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I’m planning to develop these techniques here in Blackwood and sell the information.”

I’d already sourced most of the materials needed to make concrete. I just needed my research and development people to figure out the correct proportions.

Instead of being upset, Pavatin smiled. “You’re as interesting as the king promised me you would be. Could I interest you in becoming business partners? I believe I can expedite the development process.”

I grinned. “Pavatin, I feel like this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

STEP 23

YOU DON’T MAKE THE RULES

Rina owned an inn in Melgrim, because she wouldn’t sleep under the same roof as her sister. Consequently, it was the nicest one in the city, and only visited by those who didn’t rely on the regent’s favour to remain in business. Her suite took up the top floor and was almost as large as Emily’s manor. The sitting room we were in was tastefully decorated, with elegant couches and armchairs and a balcony overlooking the main square of the business district.

Those doors were closed for our meeting.

Fitz sat against the wall, quietly taking note of everything going on, while Jeric and I spoke with Rina and her lawyer. The only detail that didn’t make this a standard meeting was Rina’s wizard sitting in the corner and making sure the regent or anyone else wasn’t spying on us.

Rina was openly frustrated by having to be here. She clearly hadn’t intended to keep to the part of the deal that required her to support me, but she’d only purchased half of the farmer experience she wanted to from me, so was forced to in order to secure the other half. “How do you feel about taking personal responsibility for the giant?”

I tugged at my shirt cuff, trying to untwist the material pulling at my arm. “What do you mean?”

Rina turned to her lawyer, Olster. “You explain it to him.”

Fitz had previously contacted several people he knew in order to learn who we would be dealing with in the meeting. Olster was in his eighties, but you couldn’t tell because of his high level. His hair was a shade of blonde, so light it was nearly white. It made an odd contrast to his deeply tanned complexion, but his charisma was high enough that instead of looking ridiculous, he looked both professional and fetching. Something that proved helpful when you ran the most successful law firm in a city as large as Rina’s. He was also an odd mix of being overly cautious and willing to listen to those who weren’t.

There were only two other lawyers in his firm, one who specialised in making agreements out of court and another who used unorthodox methods to win cases, which made them the perfect combination for almost any case.

Olster crossed his legs, leaned back into his armchair, and folded his arms. “I believe we can have the giant classified as a pet, so I’m going to request a motion of the high judge to have the giant’s status recognised before they hear the adventurers’ case. This isn’t the first time someone has captured a monster and tried to keep it as a pet, so there is sound basis for my argument. Those who have won the right to do so in the past have all had to display that they can keep the monster contained, and you have already proven you can do so. If that doesn’t work, I will try to have it classified as livestock.”

I frowned. “How will that fix my problem?”

“The guild is trying to claim that the giant is a monster and a danger to the village. This falls within their jurisdiction of responsibility. If I can have it classified as a pet, it falls within Blackwood’s responsibility. If that happens, they won’t have a legal case for the high judge to hear. However, if I’m successful, you will take legal responsibility for the giant. If it ever escapes and kills someone, you will face manslaughter charges.”

That was unsettling, but also fair. I was playing with fire, so taking responsibility if the house burned down was exactly what should happen.

“How likely is the high judge to accept this?”

Rina scoffed. “Not very. There is so much involved with your issue that my sister is sitting as high judge.”

I groaned. I was so screwed.

“Don’t worry,” Olster said. “If she doesn’t accept my initial argument, I am confident I will still win. They don’t have a powerful position with their current argument. It’s the other arguments they can make that I am not so confident about.”

* * *

My knuckles were white due to how tightly I squeezed my fists. Memories of the cluster worms eating their way through my flesh blazed through the back of my mind in agonising detail, leaving me furious as I sat in the regent’s great hall, glaring at her.

Jewel-encrusted, golden peacock feathers fanned out behind her delicate silver throne, contrasting with the muscular woman sitting upon it. Regent Katella was dressed in a gold version of the judge’s robe that Lodin wore, adjusted to show her strong physique. The colour didn’t flatter her, making her eyes appear a dull brown and her complexion look off. Even her blonde plait resting over her shoulder had lost its lustre.

I was at her mercy again, and I hated it.

She gazed intently at Olster as he made his argument for why the giant should be classified as a pet, and how the adventurers’ guild, sitting on the other side of the great hall, didn’t have the jurisdictional privilege they needed to make their case.

Rina leaned forward, face appearing over my shoulder to whisper in my ear. “She’s actually listening to Olster’s argument.”

I took a moment to force myself to calm down, and then leaned back, whispering just as softly. “Is that important?”

“Yes. She’s taking her responsibility seriously. I didn’t expect her to, even with the king’s judgement.”

Olster finished presenting his case and handed over a larger pile of paperwork. The regent took everything and began flipping through, only taking a handful of seconds to read each page. Because of her high agility, it only took her five minutes to go through the entire stack. Absorbing and processing that information only took a little longer.

The regent finally looked up. “Your arguments are valid. However, as the giant is both personally kept by Landlord Arnold and there is an ongoing quest to find a method for him to kill it for experience, it is both his pet and livestock, not one or the other. I accept it being classified as both. As such, killing pets and livestock is not within the adventurers’ guild’s jurisdiction, so their request has no basis and is dismissed. This is my ruling.”

I leaned back. “Ahhh, what just happened?”

* * *

“She slipped up,” Rina said, the moment Jeric and I entered her sitting room the following day.

I took a seat in the armchair across from her. “I thought you invited us here to talk about the case?”

Rina appeared giddy as she smiled at us. “We will, but first we need to talk about my sister. She’s involved with the judge, and she got her hands dirty in doing so. That’s why she sided with you.”

Jeric perked up. “How dirty?”

Rina gave him a predatory grin. “The king will have to reprimand her for this if he finds out. But I believe we can keep it quiet. And I believe my sister will be willing to make a concession not to interfere in your affairs further, at least until the next solar festival, if we do so.”

Jeric raised an eyebrow. “Thereby freeing you of your obligation to Arnold. Convenient. How specifically has she gotten her hands dirty?”

“I can connect her to Lodin through a series of interactions with others. She personally steered the guild towards him. But that’s as specific as I’m willing to be with you. To tell more would involve revealing my informants’ capabilities unnecessarily.”

I frowned. This didn’t sound that impressive. I mean, if the regent was involved, there was an obvious way out. “Why does it matter? She’ll just claim she was testing him to see if he was corrupt.”

Rina laughed. “That’s exactly what my sister was intending to do. However, she didn’t know the guild master she was using wasn’t only greedy, but also corrupt. He was supposed to demand a forced sale of the giant, compensating you for its loss. The miser instead tried to make a claim that he was killing the giant for public safety reasons, and the judge was willing to go ahead with it.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

Jeric smirked. “It makes a difference because her actions led to a guild master trying to rob you, and she put none of the safety precautions in place to stop this from happening.”

This was going over my head. “I still don’t understand; why is this such a big deal?”

“Because the system would have recognised their actions as lawful,” Jeric said. “There would have been no easy way to make restitution to you.”

I finally understood what they were getting at. A nation’s laws weren’t just a legal code here. They were recognised by the system and incorporated into it. They were part of the system, but a very delicate part, since certain classes gained experience for enforcing them. Because of this, laws were quite simple, most as short as the Ten Commandments. No murder, rape, or theft beyond the need for survival.

I’d once asked Salem why they didn’t make a bunch of laws like jaywalking to gain experience. The answer was unsettling. Laws had to be enforced here. There was no turning a blind eye, or even offering a gentle hand. The more a law was ignored, the less experience it offered, but more than that, the less experience was offered for all laws and their enforcement. Allow enough people to slide, and multiple classes would find themselves cut off from the ability to level that way.

On top of that, the system kept track of everything.

By having a judge there, everything would have become much more complicated. The system would have viewed their actions as legal. If the guild was then forced to make reparations, the system would have viewed that as unlawful or realised they had abused the system, causing there to be a correction. With system achievements tied up in this, the whole mess could have gotten completely out of hand.

“Ohhh,” I said.

Jeric nodded. “It’s a big deal.”

“But not crippling,” Rina said. “Reporting her will only chip away at her credibility and make her more cautious when dealing with you.”

“Won’t that help?”

“You aren’t the only person she hates, though she hates you more than most, and you are far from the only person she is trying to ruin. So don’t think you’re special.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“You’re acting like this is her first gala. She’s effectively dealt with mistakes like this in the past and has come out stronger for it.”

I wanted to ruin the regent as much as she wanted to do the same to me, but I wasn’t in a position to do that, obviously. Before raising my charisma, I would have likely ignored Rina’s advice to cut a deal, taking the opportunity to get a bit of payback, even if it cost me down the road. I was still incredibly tempted to.

I squashed the urge.

I had responsibilities beyond the need for revenge.

“What if she doesn’t want to make a deal? The woman hates me.”

Rina paused. “Normally, I would say not to worry, but I recently learned why she hates you, and I would say that her rejecting the offer is a fair concern. I am loath to say this, but we need to have dinner with my sister.”

STEP 24

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU SPEAK

Lamps burned along the walls of Rina’s inn. Twitching shadows played across the four-post bed, hiding nightmares best forgotten, memories which threatened to pull me under and drown my focus. I stood before the full-length mirror, making adjustments to my suit, altering the way the material fell, straightening lines for the looming confrontation.

Dinner with the regent was going to be more dangerous than fighting a troll. I only had my wits to rely on, and I wasn’t sure they were the right weapon for the job. It had taken me days to get my head straight. Days of going over what she had done to me, the way she had tortured and hurt me.

Taking the anger that I felt over the injustice and forging it into a weapon that I could wield was not simple. Because I’d never truly addressed my emotions over what happened at the arena. I’d repressed them, forcing them down so they didn’t distract me.

Sitting helplessly in her throne room caused them all to come rushing back. Not spitting at her feet and cursing her out had taken every ounce of control charisma had given me. I’d wanted to plunge a knife into her eye and watch her scream. It was no less than she deserved.

But I hadn’t.

The reward wasn’t worth the cost, even in the unlikely case I was successful.

And now I had to make a deal with her.

So I’d forced myself to face what happened, and accept the part I played in it. Yes, she’d taken me to the arena, but I was the one who was too stubborn and angry to leave. I was the one who saw her pain and accepted mine as the consequence of keeping her there.

I was the one who let my anger control my actions.

I lit myself on fire and hugged her tight, laughing as the fire consumed us, because it let me hear her screams. That sort of anger had no direction or purpose beyond destruction. It cared not for who got hurt or how, so long as everyone suffered. It was the sort of anger that would destroy everything I wanted to build. It was the sort of anger I couldn’t afford to keep.

So, I’d stuck the memory on replay, going over it again and again, taking it from something that had happened to me, to something I chose for myself. I watched it over and over until it became as familiar to me as the back of my hands. Then I’d been honest with myself. I’d separated what was her fault and what was mine. And then, I’d taken everything she’d done to me and got to know the anger it ignited in me. I got to know my emotions and the way I felt towards her, in excruciating detail. Finally, I got to know what I needed to have happen for that anger to be satiated.

Once I knew that, I could make compromises with it.

I might not be able to stab her in the eye, but would my anger accept making her yield? I might not be able to listen to her dying screams, but could I enjoy her admitting defeat? My anger went from something that controlled me to something that directed my actions without harming me unnecessarily at the same time.

Jeric stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and looked me over with a critical eye before shaking his head. “You shouldn’t do this. You don’t have the training. One slip and you could find yourself in real trouble.”

He was speaking about the oath I had to take before dinner with the regent. The one he’d argued with Rina about for hours. The one he’d been telling me not to take for the past two days.

I got where he was coming from. Rina wanted me to take an open oath. From the moment I entered the dining room, I wouldn’t be able to lie, share what we said, or use what I learned from her or the regent against them. And any verbal agreement I made would be as binding as if I had taken an oath for it. There were all sorts of pitfalls to our plan. This sort of oath was usually reserved for when kings met and spoke in person. But it was our best chance. The regent was in her element when she had time to plan. This oath didn’t allow her that.

“I’ll do as little talking as possible,” I said. “Rina has said—”

“I know what she said,” Jeric snapped, “but it doesn’t change a thing. It’s absurd. If she wasn’t trying to do this with a regent, it would be illegal.”

I turned, feeling some of my anger resurface. “Absurd is a village in the backwaters of the kingdom defying their regent when she wants them to fail and is working against them. She’s taxed every piece of food she can. She’s cut off our ability to trade. She’s whispered in the king’s ear to halt the village’s level. If Beldose came a month earlier, we’d be ruined. I can keep throwing money at the problems, but for how long?”

“Eight years,” Jeric said.

“What?”

“I know you were being rhetorical, but you’re financially stable for another eight years, even with everything inflated. Rina’s help has been highly profitable for you.”

I knew this already. I might not bring it up with Jeric anymore, but Fitz kept me up to date and in the loop far more than I would like. He could do it with so few words that by the time I started to complain that I didn’t need to know something, he was finished explaining. I needed to give him a raise.

I sighed, reining in my temper. “Do you know how long that money would last without her interference? Twenty years. With everything she had put on us before we captured the giant, it was fifteen years. In half a year, she has stripped away seven years of safety. What will she do if I give her another year? Another two years? What will she do to me when I try to go wide? How much money will I have to throw at the problem to stop her? Yes, going to this dinner is dangerous, but doing nothing is also dangerous. I’m responsible for peoples’ livelihoods now, Jeric. Peoples’ chance to level and grow their class. If I have to risk myself so they can prosper, what should I do? What would you do?”

Jeric’s mouth dropped open. He stood there stunned for several seconds and then began to smile. “I’m proud of you.”

There was a twist in my gut at his words. It was like I could hear my parents speaking through him. They were such simple words, but they hit with so much force. The right words from the right people do that to you. They can build you up or tear you down.

Then he ruined it. “Just don’t try to be clever. I don’t want this escalating into something that I have to spend years worrying about.”

* * *

Taking an oath is never pleasant, kind of like a colonoscopy. I spent the first three courses of the dinner merely existing and hating every second of it. I watched plates with far too little food be delivered, only to be taken away again in the same condition. The regent and her sister didn’t share my affliction, silently glaring at each other as they ate and waited for me to recover. I think they were using their suffering to fuel their anger and weakening the effect.

I didn’t feel inclined to try.

My anger barely wanted to work with me as it was. Feeding it every little injustice would see it quickly spiral out of control again. Instead I waited and accepted that I felt miserable.

Tonight was about getting the regent to back off and stop trying to undermine Blackwood’s success. So I didn’t reach for my glass of wine until about fifteen minutes after I felt I could, not wanting to have to participate before I could react more than the bare minimum. My hand was still unsteady as it closed around the glass, and I didn’t taste the wine as I drank.

Neither woman looked at me as I put the empty glass down, but a servant immediately refilled the glass before stepping back. I drained it again. Alcohol helped with oaths, but my Socialite ability stripped that from me. It did, however, affect my mood, though my present company dampened that effect considerably.

The regent gave a signal, and the servants emptied the small dining room, closing the doors and leaving us alone.

The silence stretched between us as crystals glowed down from a chandelier that was bigger than a wagon, lighting the room and leaving it without shadow. The table separating us like a wall was made from dark, stained wood and covered in small, detailed carvings. Wealth and opulence sat in every direction, but no one paid it any attention as we sized each other up.

Rina smiled at her younger twin, like a cat who had found a mouse. “I hear you’ve finally raised your intelligence above 400 and unlocked a second mind.”

The regent met Rina’s smile with her own, a cold, dead look devoid of emotion. “What is it to you?”

“I’m just concerned about my little sister’s sanity. Did the cluster worms scare you that much? I thought you prided yourself on your pain tolerance. Yet you were outdone by a farmer. Tell me, how many favours did you have to call in to gain all those rare blessings you needed to make up the difference?”

“Don’t call me that, Rina,” the regent snapped.

Rina continued to smile, enjoying herself. “Why not? Despite how far you have risen, you are still my little sister. You still need to use underhanded tricks to keep up with me.”

The regent scoffed. “You’re as delusional as always, Rina. I’ve surpassed you in every way.”

Rina laughed, clapped her hands. “You’re a glorified administrator. You lack the capacity to create anything new yourself. All that you have was given to you by Father.”

The regent leaned back into her chair and sighed. “Don’t test my patience. You lost. Accept the consequences already.”

Rina’s eyes lit up. “Speaking of consequences, little sister. What sort will you face over your latest blunder? Using a corrupt guild leader to draw out a corrupt judge almost led to disaster. If I hadn’t been asked to assist, no one would have cleaned up your mess before it escalated.”

The regent threw her head back and laughed. It was the kind of laugh a witch would make standing on a child’s grave. “Is that why you arranged this charade? You think you have something over me?”

Rina laughed back, mirroring her tone. “I do.”

Rina proceeded to lay everything out in detail, unravelling all the regent’s actions that led to the judge and guild ending up in Blackwood. It was an extremely elaborate act on the regent’s part. She didn’t do anything as simple as order someone to take an action. She went after me indirectly, using specific conversations with different individuals to make both parties come to the conclusion she wanted on their own and arrange the meeting without her involvement.

Each time there was a link, Rina spelt it out, taking great pleasure in explaining how the regent was culpable.

The whole undertaking had happened over several weeks. How Rina had pieced it all together was beyond me. But her information-gathering ability now terrified me, even though I had a strong feeling that it only extended to her sister.

About halfway through Rina’s rant, I phased out of the conversation, realising this exchange and dinner wasn’t about me. This was about them and how much they hated each other. It was clear Rina didn’t want to see her sister dead. She wanted to see her suffer and brought low. She wanted to see her tortured in the smoking ruins of her empire and go to sleep listening to her wails of anguish.

It was an ugly thing to watch.

It was ugly because I recognised how it resonated with my own emotions. The naked glee Rina felt as she pointed out her sister’s failings was the exact feeling I craved to fulfil. It was every dark emotion I felt. Rina was getting what I wanted and revelling in the afterglow.

My need for revenge cooled before the ugliness in front of me. If the cost of getting revenge was turning into Rina, then the cost seemed too high. I’d expected to enjoy watching the regent laid low, but this didn’t make me happy. It only fed the dark ball of hate seething inside me. And feeding that hate wasn’t good. It didn’t make up for all the wrong that had happened. It only hurt you further, in a different way. I could see that through Rina and her mad giggling as she spelled out her sister’s failings.

Rina had an all-encompassing need to harm her sister, no matter the cost. She didn’t care if bystanders were affected. I was profoundly aware that everything she built, was built so she could one day destroy her sister.

I didn’t want to become that.

I wouldn’t become that.

I refused to become that.

You have made an unspoken amendment to your oath. This amendment will not appear in your oath menu.

There was a philosophical shift within my mind, like the sudden movement of a tectonic plate. Everything shook, and where my thoughts and urges lay in the aftermath was not where they had been. I felt the mental oath to myself, not to become what Rina was, taking hold of me, despite never saying the words.

The boiling rage within me cooled to a simmering anger that couldn’t grow stronger. And I no longer struggled with the idea of making a deal instead of harming her. I’d spent days trying to control my anger, creating boundaries, limitations. They were paper walls, beside the concrete and steel that the oath put in place.

The change scared me. It scared me because these weren’t my true feelings. Jeric had warned me I was playing with fire, and I hadn’t listened.

Now, I was aflame.

I still wouldn’t spit on the regent if she was on fire, but the oath wouldn’t let my hate for her consume me the way it had her sister. I could tell by the way I felt I wasn’t going to be able to spend the hours before I fell asleep imagining a hundred different ways to have my revenge.

Not if this is what it cost me.

The oath wouldn’t let me.

The regent had lost her smile while I went through my transformation. “What do you want?”

Rina’s smile grew. “You will stop interfering in Landlord Arnold’s and Blackwood’s interests, and you will give me the dragon’s head that sits above your throne.”

“I would rather accept the consequences of failure.”

Rina laughed, clearly excited by the prospect. “Are you sure, little sister? If I take this to the king and lay it out as I have here, you won’t only be reprimanded; you might be ordered not to interfere in Landlord Arnold’s and Blackwood’s interests, in any way. Do you think he will look kindly upon your repeated abuse of the trial of pain? Do you think he will be favourable that this screw-up was because of a need for vengeance over a past failure? He only tolerates you because of your success. Repeated failures like these will not protect you, and he will not allow you to weaken your region to gain it.”

“I would do nothing of the sort.”

“You can’t hide your rage from me, little sister. I know you better than anyone. You can’t even speak to Landlord Arnold, though he is right beside you. You’re doing everything you can to stop yourself from lashing out at him, and that is taking your full self-control. What will you say to the king if he asks you about your feelings towards Landlord Arnold? I doubt it will be something he looks upon favourably. Do you want to risk being forced to stay your hand forever when you could accept holding back for a few years? The solar festival can’t be far off.”

The regent glanced at me for the briefest second. “What does he have over you?”

Rina shook her head, enjoying herself far too much. She was like an addict in the middle of a good fix. “Everything has to fit into a box with you, little sister. You can’t comprehend those who don’t, and you let greed get the better of you because of this. You had an incarnate in your palace who had created the single most useful noble exploit in the last century and treated him like he was nothing because he had little power, wealth, or influence. You refused to see beyond what was there and have repeatedly failed because of it.”

“You are fluttering around my question. Answer or this conversation is over.”

“Don’t tempt me like that. The only reason I have not tattled on you is because it’s not in Landlord Arnold’s interest.”

The regent stood, pushed her chair away, and started walking towards the door.

I could see Rina was going to let the regent leave, just to make her suffer more. I couldn’t allow that. I’d promised Jeric I’d keep my mouth shut as much as I could, but I needed to intervene.

“Over a quarter of a million crowns,” I said. “That is how much I will earn this year from a single clause in my contract with Rina. Her profits from that clause will be significantly greater than the price I would have accepted for the noble exploit you tried to steal.”

The regent paused at the door. She didn’t look at me, which lent Rina’s claim that she could barely tolerate my presence some credit.

“I have the money to weather the minor annoyances you can throw at me, Regent Katella. So I’m not making this peace offering because I have to. I’m making this offer because you are a nuisance I would rather not deal with while I focus on important matters.”

I didn’t see her move.

One moment she was at the door, and the next she was holding me up by the throat, crushing my ability to breathe, fighting with herself not to kill me. My chair clattered across the dining room floor before crashing into the far wall.

You have taken 39 bludgeoning damage.

“You pathetic, little insect with delusions of power,” she spat at my face, beyond furious. “I should crush you like the trash you are for threatening me.”

Anger roared through me, in a way my oath didn’t affect, and a feral grin spread across my face. The monster had thrown aside her cloak and displayed the psychopathic beast beneath. I met her gaze, unafraid of the crushing pressure constricting my throat, because of the Fearless mark she had given me. Part of me had been wishing for months that I could drag her back to the arena just to see who would go insane from the pain first. That part took control.

I mouthed the words, “I dare you.”

Her grip tightened.

You have taken 1 bludgeoning damage.

Rina picked up her wine and took a sip, smiling the entire time. “I suppose you will have to kill me, too. If you are lucky enough not to turn feral, you won’t keep this quiet. You’ll have to flee the kingdom or face execution. Either way, we win.”

You have taken 1 bludgeoning damage.

The regent’s eyes blazed with her intent, but her sister’s words penetrated her rage, firming her self-restraint. She tossed me aside like a child’s toy and I rag-dolled my way across the floor. My elbow struck the thick carpet, spinning me to strike my shoulder, before I slammed into the far wall.

You have taken 27 fall damage.

The feral grin never left my face. I knew she wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it. I pushed myself back to my feet, intentionally not taking a breath. I spent the next minute straightening my suit, while the regent regained control. I then picked up my chair, carried it past Katella and sat down with my back to her. Facing her didn’t matter. The power gap between us was too great for me to have any chance against her.

I took a sip of wine and then let myself take a long-exaggerated breath. “If anyone else had done that to me, Katella, my opinion of them would have changed. It’s kind of sad that I can’t think any less of you. Now if you’re done throwing a tantrum, show a modicum of the civility you pretend to possess and act like a respectable human being.”

Rina lost her smile and eyed me cautiously. “You’re too comfortable with violence.”

“And both of you are not half as comfortable as you pretend to be. I’m the only one in this room who has lived without immediate consequences from killing another, so I am the only one who can claim my human decency is not something imposed on me by the system. Now quit antagonising your sister, Rina. Our contract requires you to assist me in dealing with the regent, and your actions are almost in breach of that.”

Rina paused. “Think carefully before you make an enemy of me.”

I waited for her to meet my gaze. I was done playing nice for the evening. “Don’t make the same mistake your sister did, Rina. I am not your plaything. I am not your path to revenge. I don’t care if you make her suffer while she agrees, but don’t let your need to torture and humiliate her come between me and my interests.”

Rina started to smile. “How very blunt. But I suppose you’re correct.” Her eyes shifted to her sister. “You always were the worst at controlling your temper behind closed doors. Landlord Arnold may not be able to verbally report on what happened in this room, but he can show his logs.” She stood up and started walking towards the door the regent had been about to leave through. “How much trouble will you be in now, if we leave this room without an agreement?”

I moved to stand. A strong hand grabbed my shoulder and slammed me back into my seat.

“State. Your. Terms,” the regent snarled.

STEP 25

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GOOD PEOPLE.

Rina watched me with a critical eye as our carriage left the palace. “You surprised me in there. I mistakenly assumed you were harmless from our interactions and everything I had learned about you, but you’re not, are you. You’re a kind and considerate man, but only until someone angers you. Then you are as ruthless as the best of them. I won’t make the same mistake my sister made, so I hope that our relationship can continue beyond today.”

I had my oath from the regent, a temporary truce, while I licked my wound and she prepared for round two. She wouldn’t interfere in Blackwood until six months after the next solar festival. And if everything went to plan, by then she wouldn’t be able to touch me. So I no longer needed Rina’s help, and she knew that.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. “I can’t trust you.”

Rina studied me for a second before frowning. “What does trust have to do with our relationship?”

“Not much. But having to second-guess everything my partner does is tiring; just ask my bank manager.”

“So you’ll use me and throw me away?”

“No, but I won’t get into bed with you either.”

Rina suddenly smirked, changing her posture ever so slightly to better display her assets. “What will I do with the rest of my evening?”

“You’ll find something to entertain you.”

“That was an invitation.”

“One I politely rejected.”

“Then why bring it up?”

I held back a laugh. “Because I’m not as good at wordplay as you assume.”

Rina gave me a searching look, before lightly laughing. “My mistake. I’ll speak candidly then. I would like to part on good terms. I’m willing to renegotiate our deal, if that’s what it takes.”

I considered her offer for a moment. Rina had stolen from me when we first met, exploiting me as much as she could, bending my arm behind my back while claiming to be offering me safety. Going to her for help had been like paying protection money to mobsters to get protection from another group of mobsters. You got robbed either way, but the side you chose to deal with screwed you over less. She was only offering to renegotiate our deal because she regretted it. She didn’t regret it because it was wrong, but because there might be a more profitable option she could take later.

I couldn’t trust her.

“Keep what you have taken from me. It will help me remember who I’m dealing with.”

She sighed, like I was a stone stuck in her shoe that refused to come out. “How will I repair our relationship, then?

I thought about that for a few minutes.

What did I want from her, beyond what she had already given me? Nothing came to mind. If I had needed anything more, I would have asked at our first meeting. I was as blunt as she thought I was. Holding back to play games made no sense to me.

And after what I’d seen tonight, I wanted to keep my business interests and people as far away from her as I could manage. She’d destroy everything I built if it gave her a chance to bring down her sister. So, I couldn’t let anything near her that would.

Her hate had consumed her.

Why would I want to work with someone like that?

I paused, thinking about that for a few moments. What did it take to become what she had? I was very close to becoming what she was. But I wasn’t there yet. So what was the difference? Was it age or circumstance? Was it personality?

It was something I decided I needed to know.

“If you want to part on good terms, you can tell me why you hate your sister.”

Rina stared at me, eyes widening with honest surprise. “Why?”

“Because you hate her more than I do, and I would like to know the reason. It can’t be as simple as her taking your inheritance, like I’ve been told. Your anger is too personal for that. But if it is, then I want nothing to do with you.”

Rina’s face went through a whole range of emotions, from surprise, to confusion, to anger, to curiosity, and then back to anger. That remained for several minutes before she finally held out her hand. “If I’m doing this, I’ll need a drink.”

I reached into my jacket and placed my flask in her outstretched hand. She took a swig and pinched her face as Ririon’s sour mushroom stout hit her taste buds. She swallowed and then took another mouthful.

“I didn’t take you for a man who enjoyed fine dwarven ale,” Rina said. “Or someone willing to spend a crown on a tankard, even if it is nearly as strong as spirits.”

I quietly controlled my expression as I choked on the price. I’d been drinking it like it was regular beer ever since the thought of alcohol didn’t give me flashbacks. How much money had I drunk?

Rina drained the flask and tossed it back to me. I slipped it into my jacket pocket and waited.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

I shook my head.

“You would choose a story over 50,000 crowns?”

I thought about that for a second. It was far more money than I thought she was talking about, but it didn’t change anything. If she would rather give up that amount of money, then this was probably something I needed to hear.

I nodded. “If it’s the right story.”

Rina’s expression went entirely neutral. “And what is the right story?”

“One that makes me understand your anger and why you are the way that you are.”

“I could lie?”

“But you won’t. Because doing so would put at risk the exact goal you’re trying to achieve.”

She shook her head, eyeing me nervously. “You’re so ruthless when you’re angry. In a few years, you will be someone to fear and step lightly around.” She sighed. “And I have enough to worry about as it is.”

“I am perfectly content to share a quiet carriage ride back to our lodging, so the decision is yours.”

The carriage rolled through the city for several minutes before Rina broke the silence. “My father had children late in life, and he only ever intended to have one to cement his legacy. He was 347 years old when we were born, which was enough time for him to raise us to maturity and complete his legacy. He did not want a daughter, let alone twin daughters, but neither did he want more children to try for a son. So, despite his doubts, he began grooming us to inherit. He was not a loving or kind parent, but he taught us everything we needed to know to be the regent.”

“Do you hate him?” Her tone suggested that she did.

“Not as much as I once did. Age changes how we view things. Looking back, I can see he thought his methods were necessary and that he knew no other way to achieve his goal. The north has been safe for over fifty years because of him, so I can’t say that he was wrong. I only hate that I was the instrument he chose to make it so.” Rina paused. “Do you share a similar distaste for parents?”

I shook my head. “My parents were nothing but kind and supportive, even when I disappointed them. I am thankful for every day we had.”

Rina gave me a disgusted look. “Then I don’t expect you to understand. My father pitted me against my little sister from the day we were born. Everything was a contest. He even lied when he told us we both had a chance to inherit and that only the strongest and most cunning would. He taught us to be ruthless, that when there was no opportunity to exploit, you made one. And that is exactly what my little sister did.” Rina paused again. “Do you have another flask?”

“No.”

“A pity.” Rina balled up her fists and turned to stare out the window. “We were fifteen when my little sister worked out our father was lying about her chance to inherit. That he only ever intended for me to inherit, because I was the oldest—by moments. His actions showed her there was no line you did not cross, no person you could not be willing to crush to achieve your goals, even family. The revelation broke her. Or made her into the perfect model of what my father was trying to achieve, depending on how you view it. Though even he realised it was a mistake, in the end.”

“How was it a mistake?”

“Our father was a good man made harsh by the troubles that befell Radian in its youth. There were orc wars and untamed lands filled with monsters at every turn, forcing him to adapt. He thought the gentleness of his childhood was a hindrance that weakened his resolve, but it tempered the ruthlessness that kept him from acting out of hand. He was once a decent person and so remembered how to be one. My sister never had that experience. Her only joy came from the praise he offered her when winning and crushing her opponent. I was no better. But I never considered acting against her outside our competitions.” Rina paused, gauging my reaction. “I can see you don’t believe me.”

“Should I?”

Rina wiped a tear forming at the corner of her right eye. “I am not a monster. She was my little sister, and despite what my father tried to do, I loved her. What was mine was hers. But the thing she wanted most was not mine to give up. Melgrim needed a strong regent, not one who gained their place because their older sister let them. It was what my father raised me to embody, and I still believed she had a chance when she asked me to reject my inheritance and I told her I wouldn’t. Birth-based inheritance had not existed in Radian for two centuries at that time. How naive I was to think our father had changed with the times.”

“But he hadn’t.”

“No, and my sister knew that. So she set about removing me in the most effective way she could. She got me pregnant.”

“If you were ra—”

Rina snapped at me before I could finish. “You have seen the lengths my little sister will take not to incriminate herself. Such barbaric and unsophisticated actions are beneath her. Now kindly allow me to finish pulling up these painful memories, so I may satisfy your morbid curiosity.”

I nodded, hearing what I felt was honest emotion in her tone.

“I met my first love on our seventeenth birthday during the ball my father threw for us. He was nineteen, handsome, and a twin like me. He was from a small noble family in the southern land that didn’t have enough experience for both him and his brother to keep their class. He volunteered to become an adventurer, so his brother wouldn’t have to. He was every inch the heroic young adventurer that noble girls pine after. And with no chance of pregnancy, there was nothing to impede us having an affair.”

I saw where this was going. The system didn’t offer nobles universal birth control, like it did for every other class. The system also made all adventurers sterile, so relationships between the two classes were common, especially among teenagers. “He was an identical twin, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, my sister searched the entire kingdom for him, and by the end of a night filled with dancing and girlish laughter, I was smitten. My little sister was the first person I told, and she did everything she could so we could meet again. You have no idea how much I loved her for that. Within a month, I was out of the palace with him every second night. And every other, he was at the palace for a ball. Sometimes he would be there for the entire evening, and others he would arrive near the end so I could drag him off, tipsy on wine, to my bedroom. His feelings for me were not faked. He did not know what my sister had planned, and I know in my heart he would not have gone along with it if he did. He was a good man. So I am happy he was spared the news of his brother’s betrayal.”

“I don’t follow?”

“They were identical twins, but my sister still needed him out of the way for me to drunkenly drag his noble brother off to my bedroom at the end of the night. A last-minute request for help in the northern forest was the perfect excuse to have him absent, and a servant intercepting the message he sent to apologise for his absence was a simple enough piece of espionage for anyone to manage. So while I unknowingly had sex with his brother and became pregnant, making me unfit to inherit in my father’s eyes, he died in that forest, holding back a beast as his party fled.”

I gulped. That was fucked up. Like Jerry Springer fucked up.

“So that is why I hate my little sister so. She didn’t just take my inheritance. She didn’t just get me pregnant to do so. She orchestrated the death of the first man I loved and felt no regret. My only consolation is that father saw the monster he created and was appalled, but by then her plans were already in motion, and he could do little to stop her. She would inherit, or she would ruin him. He was too egotistical to allow the latter to happen and believed he could turn the tables, given enough time. He died regretting ever having children, and I’m told my sister commended him on his parenting at the funeral.”

“So that’s why you hate her?”

“That is the main reason. There are little details I haven’t told you, like the way his brother asked if I was sure I wanted to sleep with him before I pulled him onto my bed, thereby, alleviating him of being legally culpable. But I feel like I have answered your question sufficiently to part on good terms, or would you prefer I drag up every painful detail?”

I considered her question. “What happened to your child?”

“I made his parents take her in. They created the mess by raising such a despicable son, so they should deal with the consequences. I’m told she inherited in his place, so at least one of us got something out of her birth.”

Rina might not be as bad as her sister, but she still wasn’t someone I could trust. The reason for her anger was fully justifiable, but was also the sort of thing you burned down cities to get vengeance for. Nothing would stop her short of the total destruction of her sister. She was mad, but she wasn’t mad without reason.

I was going to have to be careful around her going forward. But there were ways we could work together.

“Thank you for sharing.”

STEP 26

CONTROLLING YOUR THOUGHTS

Hope is the crutch of the unprepared. It’s the desperate lifesaver they cling to in an ocean of misery with no land in sight. It’s the lie they tell themselves that if something changes, they will survive the unforeseen threat drowning them. Hope isn’t about what they control. It’s about everything they don’t. Hope means fate and luck are in their corner. So they cling to it, because hope brings a measure of peace when they have no reason to be peaceful.

Alternatively, living without hope is exhausting.

It grinds you down, forcing you to plan and think even when you know you have little-to-no chance of success. Every move you make has to be calculated. It has to be considered. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. And it’s not peaceful.

I didn’t think we were in a hopeless situation until the regent gave into our demands and I felt a measure of hope return. Suddenly, the Blackwood raft I’d desperately bound together to keep us from drowning didn’t seem so rickety and waterlogged. The ocean current that propelled us through the storm no longer felt like the treacherous torrent that might see us sink. It was a cradle that might carry us to land.

Hope is the antithesis of despair.

Jeric raised his tankard for the twentieth time since I’d returned from the regent’s dinner, cheeks flush from excess. “To Blackwood’s future,” he slurred, not waiting to see if we joined him, before tilting the drink to his lips.

Fitz and I rolled our eyes as we watched Jeric sway on the couch. He’d been celebrating enough for the four of us, excited that Isabelle wouldn’t have to deal with all the pressure the regent had placed on her as acting mayor any longer. We saw the moment Jeric passed out, because ale spilled down his front. Fitz leaned over and took the tankard from him, before it could make too much mess, placing it on the table.

Then he grinned. “That’s two down.”

Ranic snorted in his sleep, splayed out on the armchair, exhausted from the negotiations with his colleagues and too many toasts.

I chuckled. “It’s been a stressful week.”

Fitz shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“How did you deal with it?”

Fitz pointed to Jeric. “Like that.”

I laughed.

Fitz refilled his tankard and took a sip. “Do you still intend to go ahead with training your Mental Resistance mark?”

I nodded.

Thinking about being charmed terrified me in a way I didn’t know was possible before coming to this world. The loss of identity and freedom of choice was so utterly revolting that I still occasionally woke up shaking. Having no control when the King appeared in Blackwood was a horrible reminder of what it was like. And the sleepless nights were almost as frequent as they had been right after I fought off Ilia’s charm.

Fitz frowned. “Do you need me to stay in Melgrim while you train it?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Jeric and I have work in Blackwood that we should attend to. Now that the regent isn’t meddling, things won’t continue to get worse, but without additional effort, they won’t get better, either.”

* * *

Two days later, I was sitting in an empty meeting room at the Melgrim adventurers’ guild, playing a game of catch with Ranic. We were bouncing the ball we’d found on a shelf off the brickwork, passing it back and forth, waiting for the wizard Francis to arrive.

“So Manson and Pel failed again,” I said, nimbly catching the ball, before tossing it back.

Ranic grumbled and scratched his chin, catching the ball with his other hand as it bounced awkwardly. “They’re too young and inexperienced. Looking over their shoulder and guiding their actions only made them achieve an exceptional quality crop.”

“I thought my mark made growing perfect crops with tough apples easy.”

“Easy is a relative term. Working with them has given me insights into who I can and cannot walk through their first threshold, so I should have better luck in the future.”

Ranic had failed to get them through their first threshold three times. I’d expected him to lose confidence, but he sounded like he’d given up on them.

“If you need more time with them, you know you can take it, right?” My tone might have held a little hope that he would take my offer.

The trip to Melgrim had been shortened by using the teleportation circle network, but it was still filled with days of tedious farming study. Days of tedious farming study that would become weeks and months once we got back.

Ranic heard my hope and smirked. “Jeric’s capable of running most of the day-to-day work. And we aren’t focusing on training until the farmers from down south arrive. So, except for the occasional lecture for the militia, my days are mostly free, once my associates move to Blackwood.”

I was about to try to offer him more time in another way when a smooth, sophisticated, masculine voice filled the room. “Pardon my intrusion, but I was instructed to meet Landlord Arnold here.”

I looked over to the man standing in the doorway and focused on him until his name appeared.

Wizard Francis

Francis wore a maroon-coloured robe with silver sigils stitched into the fabric. He held a bone-white staff with a large, yellow crystal embedded half-way down its length and looked like an airbrushed cover model, with short, black hair and a shave so clean you’d think he couldn’t grow facial hair. There was an aqua quality to his eyes that only existed in the finest of jewels, making them sparkle when they caught the light. That effect only occurred when someone’s charisma was over 200.

“You’re in the right place,” Ranic said.

Francis strutted across the room in a way that flattered his posture and frame. It was similar to how Jeric walked when he needed to make an entrance.

Ranic and I stood and shook his hand, and then everyone sat back down.

“Do you have questions before we begin?” Francis asked.

I folded my arms and leaned back. “Are there any technical details that you need to share with me?”

Francis shook his head. “I have nothing to add to my letters. Training a mental resistance mark is a simple matter with charisma as high as yours. However, the process would be shortened to only a few weeks if you’d accept my advice and choose a mundane, pointless task like transferring water from one bucket to another with a spoon.”

Ranic chuckled. “Normally, I would agree with you, but in this case, I believe Arnold’s method will be faster. I’ve saved all his most tedious lessons for this occasion.”

Francis shook his head. “Landlord Arnold may dislike learning about farming, but mild dislike will only be more productive in the beginning. A meaningless task, like transporting water between buckets with a spoon, has a compounding effect which frustrates the charmed individual into rebelling.”

Ranic grinned. “Would you like to bet on that?”

Francis considered Ranic’s offer.

The last step in developing the mental resistance mark involved having your mark brute force the creation of mana pathways to form a mana network in your brain. The mana network caused injuries when it was created, and again when you were hit by an ongoing charm spell, but it provided a natural defence against being charmed, surrounding your brain with your mana.

You could strengthen your mana network later, but its initial strength depended on the size of your mana pool. Mine was so large, I’d take a massive psychic head injury. Francis said it would be like having several severe concussions in a short period. Even with my high constitution, Francis was wary about training my mark. There was a slight chance I’d receive peranent damage and have to see a cleric, which would be expensive for me and bad for his reputation.

Francis finally smiled. “I suppose a bet might make this more interesting.”

* * *

Congratulations, you have evolved your superior mental resistance mark into a mental immunity mark.

A little charm is wonderful, it brightens up your day, but too much charm is a curse, which has your mind lose its way. You’ve had to learn this the hard way.

Mental Immunity Mark

Level: Maximum

Effect: Immunity for all charm effects and spells, except channelled charm spells.

* * *

You have taken 1,372 psychic damage.

* * *

Everything ached, including my teeth. I had no idea what day it was, but I knew we were travelling to Blackwood. I could barely think. It was like the world was covered in a nauseous fog that wanted to blind me and leave my lunch down my front. There was a dull ringing in my ears, and everything was too bright.

I closed my eyes and let oblivion take me again.

STEP 27

DEALING WITH PROBLEMS

The round trip to Melgrim had taken just over a month, instead of two, due to us using the teleportation circle network. That was a month of changes I wasn’t in Blackwood to oversee, yet everything was working as it should be when I got back, so there wasn’t much for me to do after I’d fed the barrel of cyanide to the giant and finished catching up with everybody.

Ranic was off sorting out his house of scholars before his colleagues arrived, and Jeric was overseeing thousands of militia families, making sure everything was organised. Adoya was busy teaching the new operators about traps or advising the trapsmiths on their designs. And Salem was busy most nights and half of each day training the huntmaster and his small team, so he was probably asleep somewhere. Quilly was too busy to talk to me, or was still too upset to do so. Either way, she hadn’t replied to my message, and I wasn’t keen to track her down.

So, I had time to take a walk around Blackwood and see the changes.

The spouses of the new operators had attacked the last of the barren land around the north and south hamlets, bringing it to life, planting long, uniform rows of crops, making us semi-self-reliant. Cattle once again wandered about, grazing the empty land, kept away from the fields by watchful farmhands. The dozens of small farms in awkward places, which were a chaotic mess when I left, had their fields relocated to centralized clusters with nearby properties, making everything more efficient and easier to run.

In between it all, the operators who were not studying worked on building more roads. It turned out the militia rarely fought outside the annual cull. Most of their year was spent on civil construction. They’d built the majority of Radian’s roads over the centuries and prepared a large amount of the land villages and towns expanded into.

Each member had a wide variety of practical skills, skills Sergeant Gurlad didn’t want to become rusty, so they were now expanding the road system around Blackwood, taking what I’d started and adding to it, creating an intricate network, which would make it even easier to get anywhere in Blackwood.

There were thousands of people in Blackwood now, thousands of people working to make it better, thousands of people I was responsible for. And I didn’t have the infrastructure to house them all.

A sea of tents surrounded the hamlets, the only shelter I’d been able to provide to the overflow of people, without the builder guilds’ assistance. I’d been told the militia were used to living this way, but seeing them still made me feel like a failure. I was trying to give people a better life, and the tents were the best I could do.

My best left people without homes, people without easy access to the necessities of life. Sure, I was paying them far more than they would make anywhere else, but that didn’t change anything in my mind.

The more I saw, the more uncomfortable I felt and the worse my headache got. It wasn’t stress or self-recrimination over my failings that made me uncomfortable. It was the knowledge that I wasn’t cut out for being in charge of creating something like this. I wasn’t cut out for being the boss.

Frankly, I didn’t want to be.

This morning when I’d found out everything was running smoothly, and I didn’t need to do anything, I was relieved. I was happy I didn’t have to get involved.

This wasn’t similar to how I felt about farming. I wasn’t bored to tears. I was the opposite. I was extremely excited and interested by what was going on with my operators, the development of my trap system, and the industry needed to support it. But it was an abstract sort of interest. And that was an important difference.

It was the difference between wanting my house built on Arnold’s Hill and wanting to be the one who built my house up there. In both cases, the building ended up constructed, but I only took part in one.

I’d only recently realised that I was a big ideas person. I wasn’t a details person who enjoyed seeing those ideas come to life, no matter how much charisma I had. So I needed to distance myself from everything I’d made even further, because everything that was happening here was too important to be led by someone who didn’t want to do it.

When I finished my tour, I returned to my room at Gretel’s inn, to tackle the stack of letters that had been waiting for me on my bed when I got back.

I slid open the window to let in the afternoon breeze, closed the curtains to lower the light, picked up the stack from my bedside table, and then took a seat on the old chair in the corner.

The first one was from the Academy of Law.

I broke the seal and read.

The academy had written to inform me that the crazy scholar who had asked if I would be willing to feed the giant barrels of gunpowder had blown himself up while trying to bring the gunpowder to Blackwood. There had been an unreported dungeon breach along his route, and an electrical disturbance ignited his cargo. The resulting explosion killed him and destroyed a large section of the surrounding forest.

“I told you it wasn’t worth the risk of bringing it pre-made,” I whispered softly.

I put the letter down, uncertain how I felt, as I picked up the next one.

The second and third letters were both from people asking if I’d considered drowning the giant. I threw them in the nope pile, so Fitz could write back to tell them it wouldn’t work. The fourth letter asked if I’d be willing to try using jars of acid. That went in the maybe pile. I didn’t want to be holding jars of acid when the giant roared. I’d end up covered in acid. But it had some promise. Enough to write back. The fifth letter was from a smith who wanted to know if I’d considered covering the giant with molten metal. That was all kinds of difficult, but it went in the maybe pile. too.

The next letter made me chuckle.

A miner had drawn a crude picture of a gigantic boulder with a ramp leading to the reservoir and the boulder falling on the giant’s head. He wanted to Indiana Jones it. There was a note at the bottom of the letter that said he was joking.

I continued making my way through the mail, adding to each of the three piles until the stack was gone. Then I picked up the first letter again.

Someone had died for my quest.

A swath of emotions ran through me: guilt, frustration, sorrow, and annoyance. I hadn’t been able to think clearly or focus until we were halfway back to Blackwood, so Ranic hadn’t continued my lessons, which gave me time to think.

This quest was taking far more time than I thought it would. And there were fewer people with decent ideas than I thought there would be. And the letter I was holding said the cost was greater than I imagined.

Was it time to pull the plug on my quest?

I wasn’t sure. But I was worried, worried that the methods wouldn’t work. Worried that I was beating my head against an impossible wall and hoping it would break before I did. It was one of my worst habits, trying to do the impossible.

I read the letter again, weighing the consequences of my actions, feeling the smooth paper between my fingers.

The regent wasn’t working against me anymore, and so many of my problems would be solved by calling on the adventurers’ guild to kill the giant. I needed infrastructure. I needed a safe place for the builders’ guild to work.

But the giant was worth so much experience that if I succeeded, I’d change thousands of people’s lives. I couldn’t bring the man who’d died back. But was the potential experience worth me making others have to live this way? Was it worth risking someone else dying to fulfil my quest? I didn’t know the answer, but I needed to find it soon.

I needed to talk this over with someone.

* * *

Jeric wasn’t home. Neither was Isabelle. Emily was busy studying in the parlour, so I waited in the sitting room, reading one of Isabelle’s theoretical magic books.

An hour went by before Emily called out, saying she needed a sounding board to help her study, so I went to help her. Textbooks and papers covered the table as I entered the parlour. Emily looked like she’d been taking her frustrations out on her hair, turning it into a frizzy mess.

“One sounding board, as ordered.” I took a seat on the opposite side of the table, thankful for the low light.

Emily gave a disgruntled sigh, the sort all teenagers give while studying, and didn’t look up from her textbooks, focusing intensely on whatever she was dealing with. “The question I need to answer is, why are there separate systems for the different races? If the system is there to generate magic, why isn’t it all the same? Why do the dwarves, orcs, and elves level in completely different ways?”

My system theory lore was still at Apprentice, and I hadn’t really thought about the subject since Salem had finished running me through the basics, but what she said didn’t sound right to me. “I think you’re asking the wrong question.”

She groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “Please don’t confuse me with one of your weird theories. I just need to talk to someone to get my thoughts straight so I can unlock the next rank in system theory lore.”

I winced, knowing how frustrating that could be. “Sorry. Shutting up.”

One of the annoying things about lore was you had to be able to articulate your comprehension to someone. If you couldn’t, the system didn’t recognise your achievement.

Emily picked up one of the pages she’d been writing on. “Dolton theorises that each race’s physical differences are the root reason our systems cannot be the same. Yet the wizards’ academy has proven that magical manipulation is consistent, whether performed by humans, dwarves, or orcs. This suggests that these systems are not distinct because of physical differences, but because of a reason that remains unknown.”

Huh. I didn’t know that about magic. It was rather weird if it was true, though. I mean, the whole system was designed to create magic, so it would make total sense that the different systems were there because the races harnessed magic differently.

“This reason has to incorporate the distinct differences between the systems, so it should include…stop making that face, Arnold.”

I blinked, pretty certain I wasn’t making a face.

Emily continued to glare at me.

“I’m not making a face.”

“Yes, you’re making your, ‘that’s ridiculous’ face.”

“I have a ‘that’s ridiculous’ face?”

“Yes, you do. You’re making it right now.”

I smirked. “That’s ridiculous.”

Emily didn’t see the humour. She started looking for something to throw at me, but everything in the parlour was too valuable. She gave up and settled for glaring at me. “Great, now I’ve lost the point I was trying to make.”

I stopped smirking. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been making a face, but I still felt bad that she had lost her train of thought. I knew what that felt like, to sit on the brink of understanding something, only to have someone distract you, causing you to lose it all.

“Was it a good point?”

She ran her fingers through her hair, messing it up further. “I have no idea. I can’t make sense of these system theory books. Half of them contradict each other.”

“It’s a hard subject.”

“I know that, but if I can’t work this out by myself, I’m going to need to go to the capital early and find a tutor.”

I could hear the pain in her voice. She had lost so much time with her father that she wanted to cling to any chance she had. “I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “It’s not your fault. I was losing my focus, and my brain went looking for a distraction. It’s not like it would have worked, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“I’m missing something. I tried explaining it to my mother this morning, but nothing happened.”

“It might be because you’re asking the wrong question.”

Emily threw a book at me. It was a small book. Only about twenty pages. It also missed. Emily went back to glaring at me. “Fine. What’s the right question?”

“You should be asking why the human system has changed throughout the ages. If the system is perfect, then it shouldn’t change, but the fact that it has during cataclysmic events shows the system isn’t. I personally think it’s learning.”

Emily frowned and then shook her head, rejecting my idea the way Salem had. “The system being balanced is a fundamental pillar of system theory, and it has been proven time and time again. If it was learning, there would be mistakes and we would see those mistakes. But we don’t see those mistakes. So, you can’t be right. If anything, it isn’t the system that is learning, it’s us.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way.

I frowned, considering what Emily had said.

I’d been comparing the system to an AI or a learning algorithm, assuming it was trying to calculate the best way to generate magic with the materials at hand through trial and error. But what Emily said implied that the reverse was true, that the system knew the best way to generate magic, and it was trying to direct those connected to it to use it.

Alfrion’s steam wagon came to mind, and my thoughts exploded, going down the rabbit hole.

It was a piece of technology humans didn’t have access to. The dwarf assumed we would when our kings passed through their second threshold, like theirs had, but until then we couldn’t use it. The technology existed. Humans just hadn’t unlocked it yet.

Emily had just said all the races used magic in the same way. What Alfrion said suggested we used technology in the same way, too. If everything was the same, then why would our system be different? What purpose did making different systems fulfil?

Everything in this world behaved like a video game, so why wouldn’t it be taken further? Why wouldn’t it be taken a lot further? I started thinking about the system like a game, something I hadn’t done in a long time, because Salem had said it was steering me wrong.

If there was a designated tech tree in a game, there was always a designated end goal. If you had multiple factions you could play, then not every faction got access to every part of the tech tree.

Why?

One reason was to create unique experiences. I discarded that idea. It was too simple. The system wasn’t a game. It needed a more complex answer.

The answer came to me.

Shit.

Sometimes complex games limited a faction’s tech tree to make it easier for the users to understand how to play. Giving everything at once was overwhelming and confusing. Maybe the systems had spread the learning curve among the different races.

My gaze instinctively travelled upwards, and I stared at the ceiling, not seeing the painted wood, but the space where the sun would be.

The system had been put in place by a being called the Sun Serpent. I’d been told it was currently living in the sun, stopping it from expanding and destroying the planet. It had given the system to the inhabitants of this world as a way to generate the magic it needed to maintain the sun’s stability.

The Sun Serpent was basically a god when compared to a human. The whole planet could fit in its mouth, so it had the sort of power that wasn’t quantifiable from a human perspective. It wasn’t a being that had evolved on Earth, or at least this version of Earth. It might not even have come from this universe. So maybe I’d been thinking about it all wrong.

My mind moved to Star Trek aliens, specifically the Q, pulling up every bit of nerd trivia I knew. The Q were a race that had the power to rewrite time and space on a whim. They could literally snap their fingers and unmake a world, but they were only gods from a human perspective, because we couldn’t do what they could, but there had been episodes where it was suggested that they expected humanity to one day evolve and join them.

What if the Sun Serpent was like them, a being that had evolved down a path or through technology until it was godlike? What if it had found an extremely primitive world and decided to help, giving them the same path its people or others had followed? What if the system wasn’t a medieval system, but a high-tech system so far beyond human understanding that it was intentionally dumbing itself down so people could interact with it and eventually reach the right conclusions? What if it was sharing the learning process across the different races to speed up this timeframe?

Arthur C. Clarke had said any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. I’d always believed that smart phones fit into that category. Give it to someone in the 1800s and they would think it was magic. It was kind of crazy. But maybe the system was just a technological marvel I couldn’t comprehend. If that was the case, then it was trying to force a path of development, and it was using everything at its disposal to do so.

“The system has a fixed end goal and has regressed itself so we can use it,” I said, thinking out loud.

Light enveloped me as a prompt appeared.

Well done, you have successfully deduced a piece of the fundamental nature of the system, showing you have gained greater comprehension of system theory lore, earning you a new rank of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand system theory lore as well as any Journeyman.

I wasn’t done yet.

Ideas I’d heard over the past few years and my experience before coming here collided together.

“If there is a fixed end goal, which is a way to maximise magic production on this planet, then the system tailors itself to each race with a sub-system that makes them most productive in an area of magic production, in the quickest way possible, even if it takes millennia. These paths aren’t necessarily fixed. There are multiple ways for each race to get to this end goal, and the sub-system can change to an alternate path when it becomes necessary, which has happened during cataclysms. The main system is leaving breadcrumbs for races to adapt and develop around, forcing them where it wants them to go. But the fundamental nature of the system never changes, which means that the system’s future development can be predicted from these breadcrumbs, allowing for quicker growth if these predictions are correct. The reason the different races have fundamentally different sub-systems is because the system is trying to tell us that each path has a distinctly different way of being most productive. The different sub-systems aren’t different systems, but different aspects of a single system. We are all working towards the same end goal, just through different aspects, which means that you need to study all the races’ sub-systems in order to understand the actual system.”

The light that enveloped me was the brightest I’d ever seen, even brighter than when Ranic had passed through his third threshold and leveled the house of scholars in Weldon. I put my hands up to shield my eyes, which limited the light down to a level where I could see the bones in my hands and read the prompt that appeared.

Well done, you have successfully deduced the entire fundamental nature of the system, showing a greater comprehension of system theory lore than any being in this world, earning you a new rank of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand system theory lore as well as any Adept.

“I can’t see anything!” Emily shouted. “How did I gain the Journeyman rank in system lore just from listening to you? What did you do?”

“There’s no need to shout at me. I’m right here. I think I just worked out the fundamental nature of the system.”

A second prompt appeared as the first faded.

Well done, you have successfully deduced the entire fundamental nature of the system, showing a greater comprehension of system theory lore than any being in this world, earning you a new rank of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand system theory lore as well as any Expert.

A third prompt appeared as the second faded.

Congratulations, you have progressed System Theory Lore to a rank unreached in the history of this world. Unlocking this understanding has earned you a new title: Sage of System Theory.

Sage of System Theory

Effect: You are 500% more interesting when speaking about System Theory.

The third prompt faded, and a fourth took its place.

Congratulations, for expanding Radian’s understanding of system theory and sharing it with one of its nobles, your mark has leveled. Your crown’s mark is now level six.

Heavy is the head who wears the crown, but blessed is the man who helps him. The king has marked you for your services to the kingdom. Now the kingdom offers its support in return.

Crown’s Mark

Level: 6

Effect:

+18 to all attributes.

+6% to the quality of your farm’s produce.

+30% to the quantity of your farm’s produce.

+30% to experience gained on your farm.

-30% to the negative effects of disease and pests on your farm.

-30% to the fertilizer requirements on your farm.

If a field on your farm is below level 6, it will immediately level to this level.

“Okay, I definitely just worked out the fundamental nature of the system.”

* * *

Thankfully, the light show didn’t last as long as it had with Ranic, but it was enough to cause my minor headache from my psychic head injury to become a major one. It was also enough time for the second problem to turn up.

Emily and I stood in the manor’s front entrance, watching Hamlin fight for control of the front door. He had his shoulder against the frame and was pushing with his legs, blocking the gap with his body as scholars tried to force their way in.

“Get back!” Hamlin shouted. “Stop shoving! Release the door, madam! I will not let you inside, no matter how important you think this discovery might be! Guardsman Brill, a little help if you will! These scholars don’t seem to respect boundaries!”

“Let us in!” screamed a shrill voiced woman. “That light was an expert rank, world first, main branch, discovery beacon! Someone in there has just made the largest discovery of the century, and we must hear it before the knowledge is lost or corrupted by time.”

“Ouch!” Hamlin shrieked. “Madam, stop biting me! Guardsman Brill, do something.”

“Arck, I’m a little busy, Hamlin. This old bag has more strength than I do!”

“Who are you calling an old bag?”

“Ouch! Ouch! Stop twisting!” Brill screeched.

“Cease this at once!” Adoya shouted, causing everyone involved to fall silent. “This village has two master scholars in residence. The academy protocol will be followed to the letter. The discovery will be documented and spread within the day. Now, remove yourselves from the premises; and Jolin, release Guardsman Brill’s ear before you tear it off.”

“What did I miss?” Ranic shouted, panting heavily. “I ran as fast as I could. Have you recorded the discovery yet?”

“No, but I’m glad to have your support.” Adoya replied. “Hamlin, kindly step back from the door. Ranic and I are coming in.”

Hamlin turned to Emily, and I looked over my shoulder to see her standing in the doorway, ready to run for the vault.

Emily nodded. “Let them in.”

Hamlin sighed and stepped back, opening the door wide. Half a dozen scholars stood outside the door, close to panic, as Ranic and Adoya pushed past and entered the manor.

Hamlin immediately shut the door in the other scholar’s faces, glaring at them while he did so.

Ranic and Adoya completely ignored my presence, walking past me, focusing on Emily.

“Where is the individual who made this discovery, Lord Emily?” Ranic asked.

Emily raised her hand and pointed at me.

Ranic and Adoya’s gazes followed her finger, before glossing over me to Hamlin, who was now standing behind me. The two scholars blinked and then looked at each other, surprised.

Adoya recovered first and took a deep breath. “Hamlin, you made an expert rank main branch discovery. I am honestly amazed. That is truly an impressive feat.”

“I’m pointing at Arnold,” Emily said.

Ranic and Adoya’s gazes shifted to me. The look of surprise turned into outright confusion. They turned to each other, seemingly expecting the other one to speak. When nothing came forth, they looked back at me even more confused.

Ranic turned to Emily. “I was speaking of the expert rank main branch discovery, not his trapsmith discovery.”

“You know, your lack of faith in me is kind of hurting my feelings,” I said, only being half-sarcastic.

Adoya frowned at me and shook her head. “I’m going to need a moment to process this.”

Ranic also frowned. “Perhaps it’s a minor discovery, and less impactful than we assume.”

“It can’t be,” Adoya countered. “He doesn’t have a wide-enough understanding of our world for this discovery to be an obscure main branch. It has to be more general, which makes it more important.”

Ranic’s frown deepened. “What exactly did you discover, Arnold?” His tone was the same as when he’d invited me to his office to talk about my future. This was something he took seriously.

“Nothing too important, Ranic. I was merely helping Emily study system theory and had a small epiphany about the entire fundamental nature of the system.”

“This is no time for jokes, Arnold,” Ranic said. “What did you discover?”

I smirked as I sent Ranic and Adoya a copy of the prompt I’d received with the last rank up. The gasps that came from them brightened my day and made me momentarily forget the splitting headache that had returned because of all the light.

Ranic looked around him in a daze, spotted a nearby stool, and moved to sit. His head fell into his hands as he tried to process.

Adoya remained standing but was speechless, not even flinching when the front door burst open, clattering against the walls.

Jeric collapsed through the entrance, gasping for breath and holding his sides. Wherever he’d been, he’d sprinted here with everything he had. He was soaked in sweat. “Arnold, who did you share your discovery with?”

The level of vindication I felt over Jeric assuming it was me who made the discovery made me swell with pride, and I pointed to Emily as Hamlin hastily closed the door again.

“What did you discover?”

“The entire fundamental nature of the system.”

Jeric grinned. “Both of you, go to the parlour, now.”

Ranic looked up and frowned. “We have to document his discovery.”

“I understand your position, but in this case you’re wrong, or you haven’t thought it through.”

Adoya frowned at him, too. “You didn’t even know what he discovered a moment ago.”

“Irrelevant.”

“How so?”

“Arnold has many odd notions from his world that make no sense, but occasionally he says something that completely changes how we view our world.”

“Your point?”

“His discoveries tend to be a catalyst. This might cause a cascade of ideas, a wave of enlightenment. Lore that was previously out of reach will become attainable, and development points will flow like rivers.”

I somehow managed to put two and two together before Ranic and Adoya did. “He’s saying the king’s going to want to control this.”

Jeric grinned at me. “Yes, he will.”

I grinned back. “What can I get out of this deal?”

Adoya stared at me, appalled. “Your discovery could bring about a golden age of enlightenment for Radian, and you want to cheapen that by exploiting the king.”

Jeric and I replied at the same time with the same level of enthusiasm. “Yes.”

* * *

Jeric was once again in his element. He grilled Ranic and Adoya on how valuable they thought my discovery was, but didn’t let me explain any of it, before he dove headfirst into what I could get from the king. He spent the next few hours going back and forth with Fitz, before calming down enough to ask me why I’d stopped by.

I ended up explaining how worried I was about the giant to an audience. How I wasn’t sure continuing with my quest was the right choice anymore. Everyone stopped talking about the discovery as I showed them the letter from the academy. The cost someone paid for my quest.

Jeric put down the letter and looked at me across the parlour table. “Arnold, do you remember the day after you barely survived the trolls?”

“You know I do.”

“Then you remember that when I visited you in Gretel’s inn, I had my suspicions about what you were doing. They were wrong, but they were still close. That day, you trusted me and told me what you were up to. You told me all the risks involved, and you told me what you had done to mitigate them. That was the day I made a decision to let you continue to risk your life and the lives of everyone in Blackwood. This is no different.”

“Someone died this time. It seems kind of different.”

“And that’s a tragedy, but you’re no more responsible for this man’s death than you would be for one of your farmers if they were to trip and fall, hitting their head on a rock as they walked to their fields in the morning.”

I thought about that for a moment and had to accept the truth in his words. Still, that didn’t change the way I felt. “What if, the longer the giant lives, the closer we get to ruin?”

Jeric paused and glanced at Adoya. “Is his statement accurate?”

Adoya snorted, started to laugh, but her gaze landed on the letter, and she stopped. “Hardly. There are twice as many automated barns now than there were when the giant arrived, and we’ve added two additional manual barns. Each day, we grow a little more capable of dealing with the village’s weakened aura. And the new operators are showing exceptional promise.”

Ranic cleared his throat. “Additionally, since we captured the giant, we have gained experience that would take skilled farmers hundreds of lifetimes to acquire.”

Jeric nodded and turned back to me. “Your advisors would disagree with your assessment, Arnold.”

“It’s not just the danger the giant poses,” I said. “It’s everything else that comes with it. People are living in tents because we can’t find builders that are willing to work in Blackwood. I’ve got thousands more who will be here shortly, and we don’t have any of the industrial buildings we need to for them to ply their trades.”

Jeric looked around the parlour. “Does anyone disagree with him?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Fitz put down his pen. “We’re all well aware of this limitation, Arnold. My own attempts to hire enough builders, masons, and carpenters here in the north to establish a construction company capable of building the trap barns you will need in other villages have gone poorly.”

“It hasn’t been a complete failure,” Adoya countered. “Brek and his people have appreciated the additional help, and your efforts are the reason we could extend the number of barns.”

“Be that as it may, the regent has blocked me at every turn,” Fitz said. “She has blocked all of us. And her agreement to play nice hasn’t changed anything. Arnold is tarnished goods.”

Emily frowned. “I thought he fixed that?”

“It is widely and publicly known that the regent doesn’t like Arnold. Withdrawing her objections for the guilds to work with him without a show of support leaves everyone wary of dealing with him.”

Emily didn’t get it.

So I explained another way. “He means our position hasn’t improved or deteriorated,” I said. “There won’t be new complications going forward, but what’s already in our way is there to stay.”

Emily paused to process and then nodded.

“Arnold’s fears are fears we all share,” Fitz continued. “And he has a point. Killing the giant would allow us to gain access to the builders’ guilds. It would allow us to build the infrastructure Blackwood needs. It would also waste an incredible source of experience if we left the adventurers’ guild to do so.”

“Only if it’s possible for me to kill it,” I said.

Fitz nodded. “That’s an important detail. This quest might be impossible.”

Ranic shrugged. “Is that a problem? The giant is providing a consistent supply of experience. The experience’s value dwarfs anything else Blackwood can produce. Why not just leave it there?”

“And now we’re back to the infrastructure problem,” Fitz said. “But you have a good point. We can safely contain the giant, and our defences are growing stronger. Continuing as we are is more of a positive than a negative, so long as we solve our biggest problem, which is our lack of infrastructure.”

Ranic nodded. “If we can fix this issue, then many of our problems are more or less solved.”

Jeric turned to me with an excited smile. “Arnold, I once brought up the existence of the Scaled Growth upgrade.”

I searched my memory and remembered he’d mentioned it after Emily messed with the judge. “You said you wanted to turn Blackwood into a second Ulundra.”

Everyone except Emily gawked.

“I did. I brought it up with Pavatin one evening and was laughed at. Apparently, development points aren’t the only prerequisite. The upgrade predominately uses local resources when the village expands into a town. Ulundra had access to three very rare and expensive building materials, and Blackwood only has access to concentrated granite and wood, currently, though we could add a clay pit to that if we chose.”

“What’s your point?” Fitz asked.

“My point is, I have a vision. A very expensive vision. The kind of vision we nobles dream about and can die peacefully if ever achieved.” He turned to me. “Arnold, let me trade this discovery to the king for the use of the royal builders, ignoring everything else we can obtain. It might be impossible for Blackwood to become a masterwork village, but an exceptional quality one is within our capabilities.”

“Are you out of your mind!” Fitz yelled. “Buildings of that standard cost ten times the price of any normal building. You’ll bankrupt him.”

Jeric smiled, not at all disturbed by the outburst. “Fitz, there isn’t a city or town in Radian built to an exceptional standard. Arnold currently owns almost all the land around Blackwood, with the first rights to buy any land that becomes available. As Blackwood becomes a town and then a city, all of that land will be converted to buildings, buildings which he will own.”

Fitz froze, about to launch into a lecture, and then frowned. “I didn’t know it worked like that.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Ranic said, scowling.

Jeric smirked. “Blackwood cannot claim ownership of any building the Scale Growth upgrade produces on his land, because Arnold is the one who gathered the development points. It’s the law. Ask Pavatin.”

Fitz’s frown turned into a smile as he mumbled to himself. “And because he’ll own almost all the land, he’ll own almost the entire city.”

Adoya frowned. “But why build to an exceptional standard? Wouldn’t a decent standard suffice?”

Jeric nodded. “It would. But that’s why I spoke of this as my vision. Because an exceptional opportunity requires an exceptional commitment. Only three villages in Radian have ever met the requirements for doing this, and none of them were willing to make the commitment.”

“Because it would bankrupt them,” Fitz said.

“But it won’t bankrupt Arnold,” Jeric said, before turning to me. “Arnold, you once told me you preferred city living. If you trust me and invest your money in this vision of mine, you will one day live in the most beautiful city in Radian. Your employees will one day live in the most beautiful city in Radian. Now, are you open to the suggestion?”

STEP 28

LEARN THAT PROGRESS TAKES TIME

Jeric didn’t just need me to be on board with his vision, he also needed Emily. And she took longer to convince. Blackwood was turning a profit because of all the wages I was paying out, but there were years of debt that needed to be paid back. And there were more than a dozen major buildings in the centre of the village she would need to rebuild if she agreed to take part. Buildings she would have to pay for out of her class’s stipend.

Emily took the matter seriously.

She ran the numbers.

Something Fitz pointed out I should have done before agreeing. The numbers came back ‘tolerable’. Her words, not mine. So, Emily committed to purchasing the Scaled Growth upgrade, binding Blackwood’s future tighter to mine. And I committed to helping Jeric achieve his vision, seeing my people housed no matter the cost, making a longer-term investment that would see me one day become one of the kingdom’s wealthiest property owners.

Jeric argued with the king’s royal scholars for the next several days, applying pressure, using every trick he knew. I didn’t have an exploit to trade the king this time. What I had was the ability to give the king an opportunity to farm development points. An opportunity to give his people insights into the system they had never had before. It was an opportunity to make his kingdom significantly stronger. An opportunity for him to make a great deal of experience.

And they knew it.

That’s why Jeric managed to not only secure the royal builders, but have the king pay their labour. He also managed to make the royal builders our go-between for the materials we needed, opening doors we never could have gotten close to.

I was happy with the trade.

I was less happy with the three days I spent in the vault, explaining my understanding of the system to the king. The king’s compulsion overwhelmed my free will as easily as in the past. The increase to my mark had done nothing more than leave me with missing health and constant headaches.

But once it was over, Blackwood had access to the greatest builders in Radian.

Pavatin was giddy with excitement. The royal builders had never taken on a project this large. Officially, there were only a thousand royal builders that the king employed, but there were thousands of builders stuck at their third and fourth thresholds, waiting on their books for a chance to get through. The royal builders only called them in when they needed more labour. Building an entire village that challenged their skills was unheard of. And Pavatin had proudly told me he’d requested for all of them to come to Blackwood.

The cost of the materials was…something I didn’t want to think about. But this was the only thing Jeric had ever asked me for, and I was willing to try to help him with it. Lucky for him, Beldose was willing, even happy, to loan me the money. Fitz’s detailed plan and profit projections made it an easy sell. Beldose was confident his bank would be able to secure the money it needed to fulfil my loan from other banks. The extremely high interest rate he charged me gave him a lot of room to negotiate, which was something he enjoyed pointing out to me.

People chatted in the background of Gretel’s Inn, as I scanned over Blackwood’s preliminary designs, trying to make sense of them. The maps only showed the new layout of the village. Pavatin needed time for the individual designs for the buildings, so it was quite vague on details.

I squinted at the page, trying to figure out how we were going to house everybody. “Fitz, do apartment buildings exist in this world?”

Fitz glanced up from staring despondently at his stew. His personal chef was off sick with the flu, so he was stuck eating at Gretel’s with me. “I’m not sure what an apartment is.”

“It’s a massive, multi-storeyed building that contains dozens of individual homes.”

“Oh, you mean stacked housing. Yes, we have that in most of our new cities. It helps save on space.”

I tilted the map down so he could see. “Is that what these residential buildings are?”

Fitz glanced at the map, peering at the precise lines Pavatin had drawn. “I believe so.”

“What about this open space in the middle of them?”

“I believe that’s a park or garden. It’s probably there to accommodate Lord Emily’s wish for green, open spaces.”

“There are a lot of them.”

“She was quite adamant.”

I frowned. “How many people can these apartments hold?”

Fitz scratched his cheek while he thought about it. “If they were normal stacked housing, I would say 80 dwellings, but exceptional buildings require more space from what I remember when building mine in the capital, so likely half that.”

I swallowed, staring at how many buildings there were. “This is beyond what we need. It will house over twenty thousand, without having apprentices sleeping in workshops.”

Fitz chuckled. “You have the kingdom’s greatest architect designing a village to an exceptional standard that is capable of purchasing the Scaled Growth upgrade before becoming a town. Pavatin considers this project to be his first legacy. Blackwood will be so far beyond your expectations that you will have no complaints, except for the cost.”

“Except for the cost,” I repeated, hiding my wince.

* * *

Something changed when I leveled my crown’s mark. It began as an itch, a feeling that someone was watching, moving through the shadows, studying my every move.

It took me five days to figure out the mark had strengthened my bond with Salem, and that I could now sense his presence. The discovery didn’t occur because of anything I did, either. Salem leapt through my window one morning to question me about my system theory discovery. The itching sensation followed him around the room.

I didn’t mention it to him when I realised, because finding him when he didn’t want to be found was a pain. And the ability gave me a way to track him.

I was glad I didn’t tell him, because I learned two important details over the next few days: Salem spent a lot more time in the village than I assumed he did, and the asshole could sense me, too.

I noticed him making his way through the village one afternoon, heading towards Ranic’s place, and I casually switched directions to pretend I’d run into him. Just before our paths crossed, he changed direction.

I carried on walking, pretending like I was going somewhere else. I’d already suspected he knew where I was at all times, so I didn’t want to give away that I could now find him too, or that I knew he knew where I was.

The next morning, Salem came to the village again. I started walking through, choosing a path that would cause us to intercept. At the last moment, Salem paused, making it so we didn’t run into each other, and then carried on when I continued past him. Later that day, he did it again. The asshole was ghosting me like I was an ex-girlfriend.

* * *

The rain arrived just before dawn, leaving the soil soft and easy to work. An early morning breeze kissed my cheeks as the sun rose above the horizon. It had been months since I’d used my farming gear for its intended purpose, but with the royal builders on their way, it was time for me to unlock my special promotions.

I gripped Ranic’s enchanted hoe tighter and then slammed the blade into the soil. A ripple, like a pebble dropped into a pond, played across the blue overlay, quickly spreading across the field before reaching the edge and bouncing back. I tugged the hoe from the soil and raised it for a second swing.

After Ranic’s lessons, I understood my farmer interface better, but if I wanted to gain access to the discerning eye promotion for crops, I needed to master it, not just understand it. I needed to be able to use it to the full extent of its capabilities.

The blue ripple returned, and I brought the hoe back down as the ripple vanished, missing the moment by a fraction of a second.

Working a field this way was like playing Guitar Hero or maybe Dance Dance Revolution. When I got my timing perfect, I’d be rewarded, gaining more overturned dirt in return for my effort. The problem was, the ripples were barely perceptible. It was hard to notice them, requiring me to feel them as much as see them, and the attributes I needed to make the job easier were my lowest. I’d never invested in dexterity, agility, or wisdom beyond the small amount my class and titles gave me.

I tugged the hoe from the soil, turning it over, and prepared to start again, swinging the hoe overhead, before driving the blade back down into the soil to watch the ripple play across the blue overlay. I lifted the hoe back up for my second strike, imagining I was playing an arcade game.

I timed my next strike to land right as the ripple vanished and pulled back, turning the soil over. This time, my timing was perfect, and a lot more dirt came away as a new ripple formed. I tried to repeat the motion again and mistimed my strike by a fraction of a second.

I scowled at the dirt. “This isn’t working.”

Ranic chuckled. “That’s because you are doing it wrong.”

I turned to him, hearing his mischievous tone. “I’m doing exactly what you told me to do. How is that doing it wrong?”

The old man gave me an impish grin, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Well, for one, you don’t have your hoe proficiency up to apprentice yet. And it’s nearly impossible for anyone to do this properly without achieving adept.”

“Then why aren’t we training my hoe proficiency?”

Ranic rolled his eyes. “What do you think we’re doing?”

“I thought you were training me to get the advanced interface promotion.”

“Arnold, I’m a master farming scholar with more than a century of experience. I’m not going to have you train a single aspect at a time like a novice would. I’m currently having you train eight separate skills simultaneously. Now, focus on your interface.”

* * *

Days rolled into weeks. And Pavatin only finished his plans for the sewer system the day before the first of the royal builders arrived. The simple sewage system most cities used was replaced by an elaborate, multilayered labyrinth which required workers to dig down to bedrock. It was a horrendous undertaking, and even the royal builders complained about the architect’s excesses.

Demolishing everything and starting from scratch was cheaper than building in two stages, but if we did that there would be nothing left of Blackwood when everyone arrived in the New Year.

I watched those who were unlucky enough to arrive first grumble their way through marking the area outside the village wall. When they finished marking everything out, they called in trap barn operators to help them dig, but the additional labour of low-level farmers meant little when you had to excavate half a square mile of dirt, over sixty feet deep, and move it somewhere.

The dirt issue gave Pavatin another idea, and he put my farm manor on hiatus, while Arnold’s Hill grew taller each day.

A week after the first royal builders arrived, wagons poured into Blackwood, delivering building supplies. They shipped concentrated granite blocks in from a quarry halfway across the kingdom that was fully upgraded so that it produced the highest quality material with an additional upgrade to beauty. It was snowy-white granite, with grey veins and speckles, similar to marble, but not as pretty.

Tiles of every colour and design were coming in from a different location, to be used on every surface. The high-quality lumber they’d eventually need hadn’t arrived, because we didn’t have the right storage, but it had already been purchased and was ready to ship.

Their display of organisation and engineering would have been awe-inspiring, except Pavatin told me he intended to add mosaics to the sewers, and when I realised I was going to pay for something so ridiculous, a lot of the awe vanished. So, every wagon filled with goods from a far-off place became another crown out of my pocket, and every sewer mosaic was another two or three I could have spent somewhere else.

Honestly, the whole undertaking was so stressful that after the second week, I left Jeric to work it out.

By the end of the month, all the royal builders and their additional labourers had arrived, adding another five thousand to the population living in tents. With each fresh addition, the project moved faster. None of the new arrivals were below level 74, and all of them possessed the sort of wealth that allowed them to invest in blessings, so the builders never tired or slowed. From dawn to dusk they worked, doing impossible feats of labour, out-digging any ten of my people.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that if you left in the morning, the sight that you would return to in the evening was vastly different. The western road into Blackwood vanished, leaving only the eastern gate. But the moment it did, they began construction on the sewers.

Having the builders constantly working on barns for months had given me a few levels in my builder, mason, and carpenter skills. But having thousands of royal builders on my farm power-leveled these skills at a rate that told me I would max them long before Blackwood was finished.

Over the month, I tried to kill the giant half a dozen different ways, but even the acid didn’t come close. Before too long, the New Year approached, and Emily was ready to head to the capital.

* * *

Adoya caught my eye, while I wandered through Emily’s going-away party, and I made my way over, pushing through the crowd. Music played in the background as people laughed and talked over one another, relaxing and having a good time.

I’d talked to Emily about going to the capital. With the regent taken care of, there was no reason she couldn’t stay in Blackwood a little longer. But the speed that Blackwood was growing and changing had made up her mind for her. She knew she didn’t have the skills to lead a place this big or complex. And she’d wanted to be a good noble ever since she was a little girl. And a good noble would leave to improve herself, which meant she was going.

I respected that.

Adoya tried to hand me a glass of wine, but I waved it away. “I still can’t taste properly, so don’t waste it on me.”

Her eyebrows rose, and she frowned. “Are you still having headaches?”

I nodded.

Without my constitution and charisma, I would likely still be bed-bound. Despite them, the migraines from the psychic head injury were a constant drain. I needed to invent Tylenol.

“How much health are you missing?”

I focused on the corner of my vision. “Just under five hundred, but it hasn’t risen in a week.”

“Have you spoken to Yaceb?”

“He said to give it another month. If my health doesn’t start to recover by then, I’ll need to see a cleric.”

Adoya seemed satisfied by the answer. “I intend to implement a few of the new trap designs into the barns.”

“You promised me a complete overhaul.”

“I still plan to do so, but a month from now, the blacksmiths you hired will begin to arrive. And without the abandonment order being lifted for the commercial zone’s expansion, they can only work on the smaller components. It’s these smaller components that I intend to use.”

“Why?”

“The trapsmiths are threatening me with rebellion if you don’t start implementing some of their ideas. I need to show them they’re being taken seriously.”

“Oh, that explains a few of the glares I’ve had at Gretel’s. I thought it was because I…you know what, never mind. So they’re threatening to rebel?”

“Yes. Many of them are upset that Quilly reached her second threshold and gained access to a new threshold boon and several new special promotions without their work receiving more than a promise that we would use it in the future.”

I’d heard Quilly had passed through her second threshold. And no, I wasn’t invited to her threshold party. But I’d sent along several barrels of ale, anyway. I owed her that much.

“Do you think using their smaller designs is enough?”

“It has to be, because I’m not willing to give them more until we can build the larger components in Blackwood.”

The trapsmiths and changes to my trap method were Adoya’s responsibility. I wasn’t going to tell her what to do, unless I felt strongly about something. This wasn’t one of those times, so I let the matter rest.

“Did Quilly agree to sell you the special promotions and threshold boon?”

Adoya smiled and waved Daris over. “That’s the other reason I want to talk to you.”

Daris wandered towards us and tried to offer me a glass of wine, but I turned him down, too. “So, what do you think?” he asked.

Adoya shook her head. “I haven’t asked him yet.”

“Asked me what?”

Daris smiled. “Quilly has proven that the farmer class is as intertwined with the trapsmith class, as we assumed. And continuing the existence of trapsmith scholars has been my life’s work. Now that I am capable of passing through my fourth threshold, I plan to take a more active role in this. From an academic perspective, the obvious choice is for me to become a farmer.”

“I thought it would be to become a trapsmith?”

Adoya chuckled. “That’s what I told him, but Daris raised a good point. He doesn’t have the temperament to do the work he would need to have as a trapsmith to study the class properly.”

Daris nodded. “I do, however, have the temperament to install your mithril razor nets and operate your barns until I reach level 100.”

I sighed. “You want access to the great boon.”

“We both do,” Adoya said.

“We plan to work at this from two directions. I will go from farmer to trapsmith. Adoya will eventually go from trapsmith to farmer. Between the two of us, we should each be able to uncover several hidden special promotions or thresholds.”

“Thereby increasing our chances of stabilising my house of scholars,” Adoya said.

“You know my answer, so why bother asking?”

“It’s polite, but also you tend to like adding conditions to these sorts of arrangements.”

“No, I don’t.” The moment the words left my mouth, at least a dozen instances came to mind.

Adoya smiled, catching my twitch. “You do it more often than not.”

“She has a list,” Daris said. “It’s quite extensive. That’s why I agreed to let her approach you, instead of offering to pay.”

Other times kept popping up as they spoke, and I answered without thinking. “I don’t know how to charge you for it, and I wouldn’t feel right doing so.”

“I’ve been quoted—”

I waved away his comment, realising what I’d said. “How about this instead? Just give me your word you will stay in Blackwood training trapsmith scholars and trapsmiths until Adoya’s house of scholars is stabilised.”

Daris coughed nervously. “That might be difficult.”

Adoya grinned. “Which will give you more motivation to make it happen.”

* * *

Emily and Jeric headed off to the capital the next morning. Hamlin mentioned Isabelle was lonely pretty soon after. So, I had Fitz find plausible excuses to drag her to Gretel’s for casual drinks every other evening. There was enough going on for us to talk about that I never had to search for a reason, and Isabelle soon developed a taste for the barrel of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout I’d paid Gretel to keep behind the bar.

Enough to offer to buy a barrel from me. When I told her the base price, she publicly and drunkenly admonished me over the extravagance and then went to refill her tankard, to everyone’s amusement.

Daris also passed through his fourth threshold and became a farmer while Jeric was gone. His threshold party put both houses of scholars and all the trapsmiths out of action for a week. Fitz had to drag me away several times to get my approval on important matters.

The work on the sewers progressed, and the New Year approached and then passed us by. So, despite many improvements, nothing was as it should be when the first of my new employees arrived.

STEP 29

ACCEPTING NEW RESPONSIBILITIES

The sunshine was pleasant and warm as Sarema glared at me, stepping from her carriage into the busy village square. There were several dozen carriages behind her, loaded full of people and goods, and several villagers had stopped to stare. The line went all the way to the east gate and beyond. Most who saw that scowled, already frustrated by the overcrowding.

Sarema took a long pull from her dragon bone pipe and blew a smoke dagger at me. “You promised me the housing would be in place by the time everyone arrived,” she snapped.

I sighed, feeling a headache coming on. My health had begun to slowly recover again, but I was only slightly better. I’d asked Fitz to look into having a cleric heal me, but the cost hadn’t seemed worth it. Not when time seemed to slowly be doing the job.

“I told you we had complications.”

“I don’t care. That was not the agreement.”

“I know.”

“And the giant was meant to be gone by now.”

“It’s not.”

“I know that, too. I expect you to pay double for the danger of staying here and triple for those without housing.”

“I’ve already agreed to all of this in my letters.”

Sarema smiled. “I’m just keeping you honest, Arnold. Give everyone a bit to stretch their legs and make themselves presentable, and we’ll begin introductions. Are you still planning to work out of both houses of scholars?”

“Yes, they’re the only buildings with spare space right now. Administration is going into the trapsmith house of scholars and research and development is going into the farmer one.”

“Wonderful.”

A couple of hours later, I sat in the back of a cramped office with 40 administrators. Sarema and several of her staff sat to the side, taking notes and passing them along to Jeric. He was in front of everyone, explaining how Blackwood currently functioned and what we were building towards.

He’d timed his trip to the capital, so he could catch a teleportation circle both in and out, shaving off weeks of travel while still being able to spend time getting Emily settled.

The 40 administrators he instructed would be split into four groups of ten. One group was going to manage the farm and its development. The second was going to oversee the trapsmith industry. Another was going to administrate my other businesses. And the last was going to be in charge of the operators, their training, and implementation across the kingdom.

“You’ll need more administrators once the giant is taken care of,” Fitz whispered, taking notes. “Students require more oversight than workers. You should also consider swapping the team dealing with the operators with the one dealing with trapsmiths. I’ve been here long enough to realise you need a stronger disposition to deal with trapsmiths than with those who fight monsters regularly; and while Administrator Oraflin is better at his job, he’s not tough enough to deal with those delinquents.”

“Make the changes,” I whispered back.

He quickly wrote a note and handed it to the woman next to him, nodding towards Sarema. “What is my budget for the first issue?”

“Talk to Jeric about all budget issues. If he thinks something is excessive, he’ll bring it up with me.”

Fitz made another note. “This has slipped my mind until now, but do you have a master merchant in your employment?”

“No. I was told good merchants tend to go into business for themselves. The best we’ve got is one who is academy trained with promising ability. He should be here in a few weeks.”

“Several of the administrators have requested access to your stat sheets to gauge your capabilities. I realise this is rude of me to… oh, thank you, sir.”

I rolled my eyes, having blanket-sent my information to the entire room. I didn’t get why some people were unsettled by others seeing their stats.

Most didn’t stop to look, but Oraflin suddenly swore and his gaze snapped towards me. “Sweet levels from above, you’re a Sage! And you leveled your crown’s mark.”

* * *

I’d accelerated the new arrivals’ trips through the use of teleportation circles, because they were the most important people I’d hired. They would form the core of our administration networks, the leaders of various projects. They were the people who were going to be in charge of a smithy or a team of lumberjacks. They were meant to organise the hunters Salem was training to track and bait monsters.

They were also the minor merchants who had specialised at level 25, becoming tailors, barbers, innkeepers, and every other sort of retail job that didn’t have their own class, but were necessary to keep a village running.

The innkeeper Rartrin immediately renamed Blackwood’s second inn—the one that had been abandoned for years—The Weird Farmer, and set about cleaning it up, kicking people out of their rooms so he could refurbish the place. The barbers did a brisk trade, working all hours of the day, cleaning up home jobs that were barely passable. The lumberjacks went to check on the forest to see what they were working with, and most of the hunters began complaining about their oaths and what I wanted them to do, until the huntmaster and his team took them out with Salem, and they returned to the village the following day having gained more experience in a night than they would normally receive in a few weeks.

Everything was speeding up so quickly that it was impossible to keep track. And I didn’t bother trying. That was what Fitz was for. The man had taken onboard that the farm wasn’t going to turn a profit, and that it was just there to help farmers learn the basics of their class once they had the levels they needed.

He understood that our money would be made through the operators and the trap industry we were trying to create. He didn’t know what to make of my research and development projects, but he organised everything perfectly, so that when I walked into an office, everyone was already waiting for me.

I looked around the room at the half a dozen faces. Each person here was through their second threshold in a different class; one was through their third. They were here because they had a unique skill that most didn’t possess. They were inventors. They liked to play around with anything they could get their hands on, testing out new ideas or odd thoughts.

I slapped my sketches down on the table and smiled, excited to finally see my projects start to come to life. The team looked at me nervously.

“Okay, I’ve got a dozen other meetings like this one today, so we are going to have to make this first meeting quick. This is a La-Z-Boy. It’s more comfortable than any seat I’ve sat on in this world, and it’s going to be your job to recreate it from my memories. Any questions?”

They each picked up a couple of the designs, looked them over, and then the floodgates opened, questions flying so fast, I could barely keep up.

Half an hour later, I walked into another office.

“Okay, I’ve got eleven other meetings like this one today, so we are going to have to make this first meeting quick. This is copper piping. We need to learn how to make it so we can make this. It’s a wood-heated hot water cylinder. It’s going to be your job to recreate it from my memories.”

Half an hour after that, I walked into another office.

“Okay, I’ve got ten other meetings like this one today, so we are going to have to make this first meeting quick. This is a leaf spring. It’s a form of suspension. It should drastically reduce the amount of discomfort you experience on a carriage ride. It’s going to be your job to recreate it from my memories, which is going to be hard, because I only understand its shape and function.”

Five hours after that, I walked into the last office.

I placed the designs on the table without enthusiasm. I wasn’t proud about what I was about to do. But this wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and this sort of thing had made a lot of money back home. Money Blackwood would need to generate to keep the regent from meddling once she was free to act again.

I took a moment to firm my resolve.

“Okay, sorry to keep you waiting. You guys have the bad luck of having the rest of your teams arriving in a few weeks, so you’ve got the dud project.” I put down a stack of examples. “Now these are called motivational quotes. You put them on wooden panels and paper prints and then people hang them up around their homes to motivate and inspire them. It’s going to be your job to recreate them from my memories.”

One of the women picked up a page and smiled. “I like this. It’s sweet.”

I glanced at the page and sighed, hating myself a little for needing to do this. It was a Radian translation equivalent to Live, Laugh, Love.

STEP 30

SOME PEOPLE JUST HATE YOU, AND YOU CAN’T CHANGE THAT

Pavatin and I strolled through Blackwood’s new sewer system, following the elegant footpath along the edge of a deep canal, hearing the deafening cacophony of hundreds of tools working in an echoing space. The tunnel felt like walking through a cathedral. Elaborate arches and columns were evenly spaced, carved with intricate designs to frame walls covered in beautiful tile mosaics. Crystal sconces provided a gentle, comforting light that illuminated each piece of artwork perfectly.

The craftsmanship spoke of the glories of hard work and the splendour civilization achieved when we did more than the bare minimum.

“It’s going to be the finest sewer system in the kingdom,” Pavatin explained.

Getting information out of Pavatin was always difficult, so I forced myself to remain calm. “My question was, when are you going to be finished?”

Pavatin pointed to artfully hidden pipes in the tunnel’s ceiling, sitting directly over the middle of the twenty-foot-wide canal. “That’s where the waste will enter, so the sewer slugs can eat it.”

Curiosity and the bizarreness of the statement got the better of me. “What sewer slugs?”

Pavatin frowned, glancing at me, concerned. “I was told you knew how sewers operated.”

I paused, realising I’d made yet another assumption, one I probably shouldn’t have. I gave a nervous chuckle. “I may have been basing that understanding on knowledge from my world. How do sewers function here? Actually, you know what? Just tell me how the slugs fit into it.”

Pavatin pointed to the canal below us. “This is the sewer slug holding canal. Think of it like your monster holding pens. Sewer slugs secrete mucus that is incredibly slippery, so once they’re released inside, they can’t climb the walls to escape. Waste comes in from the pipes above, and the slugs consume it, digest it, and then excrete incredibly hard, dry, concentrated pellets that are collected and ground up for fertiliser.”

It wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d heard since coming here. “What happens to the wastewater?”

“It binds with their mucus, and the slugs eat it, cleaning most of the impurities, but when the levels get too high, we drain the system into a holding tank on the level below us. There, the water passes through a series of sumps, before other slugs continue the purifying process. Once that wastewater is clear enough to see the bottom of the holding tank, it’s drained into a second holding tank that contains water-purifying slimes. These slimes eat the remainder of the impurities, and then the water is pumped away to a location, such as your forests.”

I frowned, trying to visualise what he was saying. “I’m guessing this doesn’t take rainwater, then.”

“That would be the water draining system we’re building on the level above.”

I nodded, curiosity sated. “So, when will you be finished? My smiths and carpenters are complaining that they don’t have enough space to work, and most of them haven’t arrived yet.”

“Building to this standard takes time,” Pavatin said.

“I’m not hearing a date.”

“That’s because I don’t have one.”

“Why not?”

Pavatin fiddled with his collar, realised he was giving himself away, and tried to make it look like he wanted to scratch his neck. Jeric hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of him. He’d asked the man a dozen different ways, and the best answer he’d gotten was that things were progressing. That’s why I had to get involved.

“Pavatin, what’s the issue you’re trying to hide? If you can’t build to the standard you thought, I’m not going to be upset.”

“There is nothing wrong with the royal builders’ skill,” he said, sounding offended. “Everything will be built to an exceptional standard.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Pavatin’s shoulder slumped, and he stopped to lean his back against the wall. “The royal builders have never undertaken a project this large, so the amount of material we need greatly exceeds what we usually order.”

Pavatin sounded embarrassed by this fact.

“So you’re waiting on building materials to arrive. That didn’t seem to be a problem before?”

“That’s because it wasn’t.”

“What changed?”

“They ran out.”

“Find a new supplier, then.”

“We’re trying, but the concentrated granite to which your village has access is of a variety that is almost never upgraded for quality or beauty. There are only three quarries in Radian capable of producing what we need. And it’s not something the royal builders use that often, so we only have a contract with one of them, and we bought their entire stock to get this far. We’re still negotiating a contract with the other two.”

“Why are the negotiations taking so long?”

They’d had months to work on this.

“The short answer is we have a set percentage above base that we buy at. If we change a price with one supplier, we have to change it with them all.”

“So, the other supplier will make a little more. What’s the big deal?”

“The percentage is the same for everyone who supplies to us, not just concentrated granite.”

Okay, that was a bit of a problem. “Let me buy from them directly and use what I buy?”

“Our contracts prohibit us from doing so.”

“They’re a damn cabal,” I grumbled, finally frustrated.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s not important. So, I’ve got to wait until they cave to your demands?”

“Yes.”

“How long do these supply contracts last?”

“I believe they’re for a decade.”

“Who owns the quarries?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to see if I can speed up the process.”

* * *

A few days later, Fitz ended my morning briefing by telling me Jeric needed to see me. The news made me grin. I’d asked Jeric to approach the owners of the other quarries and find out how much they wanted to sell their stock for. If it was even remotely reasonable, I was perfectly willing to make up the difference.

Getting around the royal builders’ issue wasn’t a challenge if I threw money at it. I planned to give the quarry owners a contract that said whenever the royal builders put in an order, I’d put in a second order and pay the maximum, making up the difference. The granite itself wasn’t expensive, only the transport. So it was impossible for someone, mainly the regent, to screw me with this.

I happily finished my breakfast and went to find Jeric moving through Blackwood’s busy streets.

Now that some of my workers were finally here, Jeric needed a proper office. He couldn’t keep working out of Emily’s manor, but we didn’t have an appropriate building available for him, so he was working out of Adoya’s house of scholars with the other administrators. So, I made my way over, waved to a sleepy scholar Giffon behind the desk, and walked down the hallway to his office.

I gave the door the old shave and a haircut knock, to let him know it was me. The muffled voices through the door paused for a few seconds. Jeric must have been in an important meeting, because he didn’t respond with two bits, so I took a seat in the chair outside his door and waited.

Blackwood was as busy as any city these days. People were constantly coming and going, working on old projects and getting new ones off the ground. The village atmosphere I’d grown comfortable with had vanished, replaced by a sense of urgency. There was too much to do and not nearly enough time to get it done.

Independent merchants had even started to appear. The prices they wanted to charge were ludicrous, and most of the time they were ignored, but we couldn’t source everything we needed through my farming network or Rina, and a few had managed to find their niche. We’d overlooked simple, day-to-day items, like needles and thread. With so many people, the demand had exhausted the supply at the general store I owned, forcing people to buy from the merchants.

The merchants weren’t the only recent additions. Bards had begun to arrive, drawn by the crowds. They played every night and most afternoons at The Weird Farmer, because Gretel hated bards ever since one ran off with her husband. Her feelings towards them were less restrained now that hers wasn’t the only inn and she could send them somewhere else. These days, the only people she let play at her inn were me and the other non-bards interested in music. She didn’t care that the other inn had twice the patrons. She was happy living a life without bards.

I could understand that.

No one liked what they didn’t like.

I’d talked to Fitz about distancing myself from my businesses further, but he’d advised me against completely stepping away until everything was off the ground. Administrators weren’t merchants. They were perfectly capable of running something once it was in motion, but building something without clear direction was beyond most of them. However, he knew some candidates that weren’t your typical administrators, and he was seeing if he could convince them to move. Hopefully, they would accept the offer, because I wasn’t cut out for this.

And I wanted it to be over.

Everything I was doing was necessary, but I wasn’t the right person for the job.

I knew that now.

My mind wandered as my wait lengthened.

My thoughts about what I wanted from life, what I wanted to achieve, had stalled. Ranic’s comment about living a life of endless possibilities played through my head at least once a week, reminding me I needed to find my path. The path I was on, the one where I became a billionaire playboy philanthropist didn’t seem like the one for me. Ranic talked about the fact that he had the opportunity to make vastly more wealth than he possessed. I could see that same opportunity before me. But every time I looked at it, all I felt was meh.

I wasn’t interested in chasing wealth, now that I had more than I needed.

The technology I wanted to bring to this world would inevitably lead to more. But I wasn’t chasing that. It was just a by-product of knowing what I knew. All my success was. I wasn’t special. There were plenty of people back home who could have done what I had.

And I’d swap places with them in a heartbeat. Being a rich farmer, inventor, or wizard didn’t make you happy when you had no one to share it with. Actually, most achievements didn’t matter when you were alone.

I was aimlessly wandering through my life, trying to have a good time to cover the pain. I wasn’t lonely anymore. I wasn’t angry at God or fate. But I wasn’t exactly happy, either. Fun and excitement were all I had to make the pain disappear for a while.

That fun was like an anaesthetic.

It numbed my pain.

But it eventually wore off.

And it never made the pain less harsh when it came back. The only thing that seemed to do that was living and building an actual life here in Radian. If I kept making baby steps, I knew I’d be in a happy place, eventually. I’d be in that place I wanted to be. It would be a place filled with friends, where the people around me were content, and living with more than just what they needed to scrape by. It would be a place where my life had purpose.

I thought about that for a while.

But I was no closer to figuring out what I needed to do to get to that happy place than I had been last week when I went through this. I was going over information I already knew and hoping I would have some sort of new insight.

So, I sat back and tried to relax.

Without realising what I was doing, I started humming “Over the Rainbow”. Then I started to sing. I sang in English, using the Judy Garland version, feeling the song match my mood.

My mother had watched a day-time special on Judy Garland’s life when I was home sick from school one day. I was only seven at the time, so I’d forgotten this had even happened before I raised my intelligence. I’d been on the couch with a fever, listening to Judy’s story, while my mother ran her fingers through my hair to comfort me from the pain coming from my throat. I hadn’t understood what I was listening to at the time, but it was a sad story, a tragic story. The poor woman might have had fame and success, but she suffered through a rough life.

As I sang, letting the pain creep into my timbre, doors opened, and people looked out into the hallway. Others passing by slowed their steps. All the practice I was putting in was paying off. Capturing an audience’s attention wasn’t so difficult anymore.

For some reason I can’t explain, it was easier to convey how I felt with music. It was a way of saying something without having to say it. It made it possible for me to admit my feelings to myself and others.

No one clapped when I finished. It was more like they woke up from a trance. They went back to their day, and I went back to musing.

The door beside me eventually opened and pulled me from my thoughts. A handful of people walked out. I recognised them as the spouses of the operators who worked on my farm. They gave a brief nod, which I returned before they continued on their way.

Jeric stopped in the doorway and looked down at me. He seemed tired, strung out from everything going on, but content with it.

“Come in, Arnold,” he said.

I followed him into his office. The room was a small space with a serviceable desk and several filing cabinets. The view from the window showed a small cottage. It must have been washing day, because clothes hung on a line fluttering in the wind. Jeric and I didn’t meet here unless I needed to talk to him in the middle of the day, and with Fitz, that was rare.

I closed the door behind me and took a seat, noticing the heat from the last occupant. It was a small reminder that Jeric rarely had free time anymore.

I pushed the morose feeling aside. “So, how much do they want for the granite?”

Jeric shook his head. “I didn’t call you here for that.” He opened his top drawer and then tossed a piece of paper to me. “You’ve been summoned to appear before the regent in a week’s time. I’ve already checked. There is no teleportation circle you can catch. You’ll have to run.”

I stared at the paper. The oath Rina made the regent take was airtight. She’d promised me there was no way her sister could move against me. I was untouchable. Untouchable for all of three months, it seemed.

I picked up the paper and read it.

It said I’d been summoned to appear before the regent, at midday, a week from now. I recognised the handwriting. It was Isabelle’s. The seal at the bottom of the page confirmed it.

“This was sent through the village interface,” I said, thinking to myself. “That means it’s official and time-sensitive. Why do you have it?”

Jeric held out his hand for the letter, wanting me to pass it back. “Our contract stipulates that I’m your aide. I added that clause so Isabelle could hand me anything she viewed as detrimental for you, without interfering with her role as acting mayor. That letter leaves her no room to help you without failing in her duties.”

“Help me how?”

“By giving advice. Do you have any idea what this is about?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t done anything since we made the deal with the king.”

“It’s something official, then.”

“It has to be. Her oath wouldn’t allow her to summon me otherwise.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I nodded.

Jeric whistled. “The regent is well-known for abusing her power to summon people to have an audience. Without abusing that power, the reasons to issue an official summons are few, which means it’s not something she can legally do through an interface.”

“That means what exactly?”

“It means this is big. It means you might face legal action if you don’t arrive when she requested.”

I sighed. “See if Rina can reach Melgrim in time.”

“She won’t be able to go in with you.”

“I know, but she can give me advice.”

STEP 31

DON’T BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW

When it comes to long-distance running, the key is to pace yourself. When you’re running a marathon every two hours, for twelve hours a day, no amount of pacing yourself will matter. I’d stopped to eat at every village and town, guzzling down food and drink, trying to supply my body with the calories it needed. I slept eight hours each night, falling into whatever bed I could rent, overcome by exhaustion. But endurance has its limits.

When I’d finally stumbled into Melgrim in the late afternoon the day before my meeting, my body was spent. The long, meandering route that led to the city had almost doubled the distance I needed to travel, but going the shorter route by myself was just asking to be eaten. I’d made it through the door of Rina’s inn, gave my name, inhaled a meal, and then woke the following morning to bad news. Rina couldn’t reach Melgrim in time.

Months ago, my experience running from Igwood to Blackwood had shown me I needed to give my body a chance to recover. Pushing myself too hard made me pay at the other end, so I’d paced myself as much as I could to get here.

Pacing myself left me exhausted instead of crippled, so I snorted a line of Ranic’s special focus powder, and then handed my official summons to the announcer outside the regent’s great hall as the world came into focus.

The announcer didn’t question my behaviour as he struck his staff against the floor. Thump. Thump. Thump. “Landlord Arnold of Blackwood, officially summoned by Regent Katella for reasons unknown.”

My legs ached as I strode through the regent’s great hall, hearing the muffled tapping of my feet. The monster heads, mounted along the marble walls, caused a nervous energy to flutter through me. I felt a kinship with the decorations. The regent was a hunter, and today I was her prey. But it was reassuring to see her missing the prize of her collection. The dragon’s head that previously hung centre stage, which now sat in Rina’s great hall, was an eternal reminder the regent could be beaten.

I reached her throne and bowed, before lifting my head to finally meet her deep, wooden gaze. The slight crinkle around her eyes spoke of open delight, and there was unchecked satisfaction in the upward curve of her lips. The owl had caught her mouse, and she was happy.

I straightened my back, trying to give the impression that my body didn’t ache and my head wasn’t killing me. Looking weak in front of a predator was always a bad idea.

The regent lifted her right leg and crossed it over the left before adjusting the fall of her dress. Then she leaned back and lounged, drawing out the moment. The dozen officials standing near her throne whispered among themselves, barely paying us any thought.

She smirked at me. “Landlord Arnold, this court appreciates your punctuality.”

The last week had been gruelling. The very limit of what my body and attributes could handle, and she likely knew that when she set the timetable.

I bit back a scathing reply. “The letter implied that the matter was most urgent and important, regent.”

“It is. King Grorion of the dwarven kingdoms has approached me with an offer that both worries and intrigues me. He believes his enchanters have created a weapon capable of killing a giant and would like to test this weapon on the one you have captured in your reservoir. Would you be willing to allow this?”

I considered the request.

A weapon that could kill a giant was something the dwarves had been chasing for millennia. Their hatred for their ancient enemy was nurtured from birth. It had consumed the core of their culture, making giant-killers universally revered and respected. Ririon had gone to great lengths just to find out if his ale could slow them down, throwing away a fortune and decades of work, but that was merely considered to be the proper behaviour in his society. Many dwarves would go to even greater lengths. They were fanatics.

But was I willing to give them a chance to see if this weapon worked? What would I gain if I said yes? What would I lose if I said no? Did the regent want me to say no? Was she trying to turn the dwarves against me? I eventually wanted to sell them rice, but if I upset them now, that might be impossible. So, was she setting my farm up to eventually fail? Was she trying to ostracize me from one of the few markets she couldn’t touch?

Would it work?

I considered that for a moment.

When the dwarves’ human ancestors migrated out of Europe and made their way to North America, they found themselves in the land of dragons and giants. They quickly headed south, hoping to find safer lands, and then ran into the orcs, before just as quickly retreating north.

Under a version different from their current system, they finally settled the north-western parts of Canada. For nearly a thousand years, they lived a primitive life of hunter-gatherers. As their numbers grew, the conflict with their environment became harsher. More and more often, they encountered prey too large for them to fight. Until one young giant developed a taste for human flesh.

It was said to have eaten entire villages while it grew to adulthood. When it reached level 100 and went to rejoin its tribe, the ancient dwarves thought their nightmare was over. But a decade later, that giant became the chief of its tribe and brought this tribe south to once again eat the villages of men.

Forty giants are an unstoppable force in any age.

They moved like a tide, devouring everything in their path, until they reached the mountain city of Stonehole, where the mad hunter lived. The mad hunter was one of the first to lose his family to the pubescent giant, and in his insane grief, he had started to build a place that was safe from them. He’d dug into a mountainside for fifteen years, working himself to exhaustion every day and night, and when the giants finally reached his mountain home, they could not enter.

The village inside was the only place to survive their hunger, and the news quickly spread.

As the years went by, more and more moved to the mountain until it was the only place left. By then, a dozen more giant tribes had developed a taste for human flesh, causing them to settle in the surrounding land. It became impossible to go out and hunt, and the people starved.

The system took notice. Faced with the mass extinction of humans on this continent, it decided to change the rules they play by. It gave them food and clothing sources that could survive underground.

It saved their people.

But as the years passed and their people dug deeper, to flee the giants, they changed. They became shorter, sturdier, more adapted to their environment. Life was hard, so it took longer to master, and their lifespan grew to meet this necessity.

They gained much from these changes, but they never forgot what they lost. The path of vengeance was never turned aside. They live and wait for the day they can drive the giants into extinction.

Was I willing to give them a chance to see if their weapon worked? I knew what saying no would mean to them. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to say yes. I could help a lot of people with the experience the giant would give me. And if I couldn’t kill it, it would still eventually give me a lot of experience, anyway.

Losing my ability to trade with the dwarves would make it significantly harder to make the farm profitable, but that had never been a major worry. It was even less of a worry now that we had so many other options.

I finally shook my head. “I have given a quest for someone to provide me with the method and means to kill the giant. I’m not willing to give that up for them to test their weapon.”

The regent continued to smirk. “So, if they were willing to provide this weapon for you to test, you would allow them to do so?”

I considered the question. She was too happy with my answer. So her goal probably wasn’t to ostracise me from the dwarven markets. What was she trying to do?

I really wasn’t cut out for this.

I had no idea what I was supposed to say.

So I went with as honest an answer as I could manage. “If he wishes to take up my quest, I’ve got nothing against him doing so. In fact, I’ve already hosted dwarves who wanted me to test a weapon.”

The regent continued to smirk. “King Grorion’s offer to fulfil Landlord Arnold’s quest has been accepted. This acceptance has been witnessed by this court. None may revoke this right.”

I swallowed, feeling the noose fall around my neck. She wanted this. She wanted this with a fierce passion.

I’d fucked up.

The regent snapped her fingers, and all her aides and guards left the great hall. One by one, the doors closed, echoing through the massive room. Then the regent threw back her head and cackled like a crazy witch. Waves of ugly mirth rolled through her as she laughed in my face.

And all I could do was stand there.

The regent continued to laugh for nearly a minute before dropping her gaze to me. “I hope you understand you forced me to do this.” She was far too happy as she announced this.

“It doesn’t surprise me that you think that. Now, what have you done?”

“I’ve done my job. King Grorion has promised Radian access to this weapon for allowing his people through to fulfil your quest. Two weeks from now there will be 5,000 dwarves sent to Blackwood working towards fulfilling your quest.”

Shit.

“How many can walk above ground?”

“A fifth.”

“Do they have their travel papers?”

The dwarf system didn’t allow for binding oaths. And there was no risk of them going feral if they killed a human, which meant humans didn’t trust dwarves. Dwarves didn’t trust humans either, but their natural strength, dexterity, endurance, and constitution made the need to trust humans irrelevant. They were almost always the strongest person in the room.

So dwarves had to earn that trust to enter Radian. And travel papers took decades for a dwarf to gain. But to have it meant their character was beyond question.

“Only half do.”

“Are the others apprentices?”

The regent shook her head gleefully.

This was bad.

I honestly believed the system understood human nature. That the reason it made people go feral if they killed each other was because it understood we were already willing to kill each other over so many minor reasons that if it gave us a major reason like experience, we would slaughter ourselves into extinction. I’d talked to enough people over the last few years to know there were a lot who would kill a thousand dwarves if they ever got the chance. It didn’t matter that a dwarf was sentient. The experience was too valuable to make them care.

There were dwarves who felt the same way. With so many coming to Blackwood without travel papers, there were going to be a lot of dangerous dwarves among them.

I didn’t hesitate. “Blackwood will need the army for protection.” This wasn’t the time to be prideful. Everyone in Blackwood was in serious danger.

The regent smirked. “King Grorion is sending someone to keep them in line. To avoid open conflict, he has requested I not send anyone to help. I am ordering you to do the same.”

My mouth dropped open and then the anger came. “Are you trying to get Blackwood slaughtered?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Landlord Arnold, I am trying to save them. As I said, King Grorion has promised Radian access to this weapon for allowing his people through to fulfil your quest. And if I have to risk one village to save many others, I will do so gladly.”

“There are thousands of people there!”

The regent launched to her feet, flying across the room to land in front of me, glaring at me from only a few feet away. “Do you have any idea how many villages are destroyed by giants each decade? Do you know what it will mean if the dwarves can build a weapon that a farmer can use to kill a giant? It will be the end of an era of terror. Is that not reason enough to take this risk?”

It was like she slapped me, only it upset me more.

I’d said the exact same thing about my trap system. I’d taken the exact same risk. Arguably, there were a lot fewer people when I did so, but that didn’t change the fact that our actions were the same.

Was I a bad person for understanding her reasoning? Was I a bad person for agreeing with it? I mean, if the dwarves were able to make this weapon, it would make it so villages like Blackwood never had to be abandoned. It would keep people safe.

That was how she was justifying it.

And it was a good reason to let it happen.

I stared at her, playing those thoughts through my head.

She continued to smirk. “We’re done. You may leave.”

My stare became a glare. “I’ve got a question.”

“And I have other things to do.”

“I’ve got a question,” I repeated, coldly. “It’s the kind of question that starts dwarven wars when left unanswered.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” she said immediately and just as coldly.

“I have a question, or we will have a serious problem.”

“Ask your question, and then be gone from my city.”

“Would you have agreed to King Grorion’s terms if it were another village?”

The regent scoffed. “What do you think?”

STEP 32

OUR ACTIONS SOMETIMES HAVE UNEXPECTED RESULTS

Two stress-fuelled weeks later, I stood in Blackwood’s empty village square waiting for the dwarf chief Durg’un to arrive. Isabelle was in constant contact with the regent’s people, getting updates at least once a day, so we knew the dwarves would arrive shortly after lunch. Everyone in Blackwood was terrified that they would slaughter the entire village, so most had fled towards the hamlets, but several hundred left permanently, resigning or fleeing, depending on their temperament. The threat was so real I’d pulled out my only dwarven trump card.

I clutched the box containing Ririon’s special reserve. Its weight was reassuring, at a time when nothing was assured. Ririon had promised me that if I ever needed to make a good impression with any dwarf of standing, then this bottle would be enough. I really hoped he was right.

But I wasn’t taking any chances.

I’d gift wrapped it in bright, red paper to add to the surprise, even adding a bow the way my sister Sophie liked to. Fitz had looked at me funny while I made the preparations, not understanding the purpose of gift- wrapping. So I’d explained it to him, telling him how it was used to surprise people and make a good impression.

Fitz liked the idea of gift-wrapping so much he planned to send a gift to his wife that way. He was still trying to get back in her good graces, and everything else he’d tried had failed.

I put that thought out of my head and focused on the present. I needed to be on good terms with King Grorion’s ambassador. It would be the first step toward alleviating everyone’s fears over the dwarves being here.

I turned and tried to smile at Jeric and Isabelle, hoping that they would be able to give me a fake one back.

They were holding hands and leaning against one another for support. It might have been a delightful moment, but they were both trembling and sickly pale. They were the only representatives of Blackwood that had shown up. Even Ranic and Adoya left for the day, too afraid to stay once they knew the dwarves were on their way.

They saw me, but they didn’t smile back.

I’d never seen them so scared. I knew they hadn’t told Emily what was happening. Jeric said they were worried she’d come back. They didn’t want her here.

Fitz leaned over to catch my attention. He wasn’t pale or trembling, but he wasn’t his usual, robust self, either. He’d worn his finest suit, making me look plainly dressed while standing beside him. “I deserve a raise, but I’d be willing to forgo said raise if you would allow me to leave.” His voice broke as he spoke the last word.

I frowned, surprised by his panic. I’d thought he was holding up better than the rest of us. “You can go.”

Fitz swallowed and stood a little straighter. “I can go?”

I nodded. “I would prefer it if you stayed, but I won’t force you to.”

“So, I can go,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Fitz seemed to relax. “I needed to hear that. Thank you.”

“Why did it have to be a chief?” Jeric whispered.

Chiefs were the dwarven equivalent of human champions. There were only 23 champions in Radian, and any of them could knock Torvac around as easily as he could me. They were one-man armies and only dealt with threats that the high-level adventurers couldn’t.

My giant was beneath their notice, unless it was actively threatening a city. So the fact that a chief had been sent as an ambassador was absurd. Or the threat to Blackwood was really as large as everyone feared, and King Grorion was trying to prevent a slaughter.

I didn’t know what to make of the situation. And neither did anyone else, so I stood waiting in the empty village square, hoping that he would arrive sometime soon, because the midday sun was giving me a headache.

I didn’t have to wait long.

And the chief knew how to make an entrance.

Durg’un blurred above the village, a black streak, flying at a couple hundred miles an hour, before making a pinpoint, ninety-degree turn, right about the entrance to Gretel’s inn. He shot down like a cannonball, stopping right in front of the door, landing on his feet without bending his knees, ignoring the fact that what he’d just done was like being in a head-on collision.

The door to the inn opened and closed before I could fully comprehend what I’d seen.

“Ah, did that just—” I began.

Gretel screamed.

“—happen,” I finished.

I sprinted for the inn.

Months of dealing with monsters had conditioned me not to hesitate. Hesitation led to death. I was across the square and through the door before anyone else reacted. The door slammed closed behind me, before I’d even made my mind up as to what I was going to do.

So, I froze.

Sitting on the stool in front of the bar was the largest dwarf I had ever heard of. He was five feet tall, with shoulders nearly as wide. His arms were so massive he looked misshapen, giving an impression of a barrel of muscle. Chestnut hair went all the way down his back in an elaborate plait, sitting against plate armour made from a metal as black as obsidian. Beside him on the floor was a dark grey axe with a massive spike on the back.

He wasn’t doing anything threatening. And the inn was empty except for him and Gretel, everyone else clearing off long before he arrived. Gretel stood behind the bar, clutching her dress, terrified, but too scared to run. She was like a startled rabbit. Her survival instincts made her freeze.

I took a moment to pause and assess the situation. Regularly dealing with monsters that could tear me limb from limb, high charisma, and my fearless mark allowed me to quash my emotions and think rationally.

Gretel was alive and unharmed.

The dwarf wasn’t paying her any thought.

My current barrel of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout sat beside him on the bar top, moved from its spot behind the bar. The dwarf chief had a tankard under the tap and was in the process of filling it. Gold coins sat in a pile to his right, directly in front of Gretel, so he wasn’t robbing the place. He just didn’t know what he was buying wasn’t for sale.

I took a deep breath, walked over, and dropped onto the stool beside the chief. I put the gift-wrapped box on the bar between us, as I turned and gave the dwarf the biggest smile I could manage.

My smile was smaller than the smile he was giving his tankard, watching it fill with growing excitement. But then his face was nearly twice as wide as mine, almost like a human Jabba the Hutt. At least he seemed to be in a good mood.

I could work with that.

“I’ve got something with me you might enjoy more, my friend,” I said, cheerfully pushing the gift-wrapped box towards him.

The dwarf suddenly scowled, shut off the tap, and turned to me. “Fuck off, you merchant git.” His forehead flashed towards mine.

Everything went black.

* * *

My lingering psychic head injury, mixed with the chief’s headbutt, nearly killed me, Yaceb explained as he made me follow his finger with my eyes. The first injury caused the second to become a critical hit, which became magically compounded by the chief’s numerous abilities. If my high luck hadn’t countered some of the system-induced damage, my head would’ve caved in, despite my health.

I’d deeply offended the dwarf chief when I told him I had something he’d enjoy more than Ririon’s sour mushroom stout. Apparently, the barrel he was pouring from was of a special vintage that Ririon rarely sold. The experience was sought after by any dwarf of means. Kings would be honoured if I served it to them. And since the chief had mistakenly thought Fitz was the man he was here to see, and I an opportunistic merchant, willing to lie and scheme to get what I wanted, he’d taken his offence poorly.

But a near-fatal blow hadn’t been what the chief was going for, despite the insult he felt. Yaceb hadn’t been there, but Gretel had given him a full account.

The chief caught my body the moment I collapsed, swearing and casting spells to stabilize my plummeting health. He’d tried to send Gretel for a cleric, only to learn Blackwood didn’t have one, and told her to find a healer instead.

Isabelle and Jeric had come through the door at that moment and seen my blood-covered face. Neither of them had hesitated. Isabelle had hurled a bolt of lightning and Jeric threw a chair. The chief had caught the bolt of lightning in his palm and incinerated the chair with it before casting a spell that held them in place.

“Hold out your hands and spread your fingers as wide as you can,” Yaceb instructed.

I did as he asked, feeling no ache in my muscles.

It was early evening, judging by the amount of light coming through the window of Yaceb’s spare room, but I knew it couldn’t be the same day. There wasn’t a cleric within three days of Blackwood, and I felt good.

I’d been walking around with a splitting headache and a mild concussion for several months, but I felt absolutely fine right now. I focused on my peripheries and saw that my health bar was full. Filling it up must have cost an absurd amount of money. I wasn’t looking forward to the bill.

“What happened after that?” I asked.

“While Gretel ran to get me, the chief explained to Jeric and Isabelle how you’d insulted him and a dwarf he deeply respected. Now, this next part, I heard from Fitz. Apparently when he arrived, the chief’s fury was so great that you could feel it coming off him, warping the air, so Fitz almost wet himself when he came through the door, but the chief was explaining why he had done what he had, and Fitz heard most of it. The moment Fitz understood what was going on, he marched past him, removed the paper from the gift you were giving him, and shoved it in his hand.”

“What did the chief do?” I asked, while Yaceb tugged on my fingers to see if I could feel it.

“He didn’t do anything. He just sat there in a stupor until I arrived. I’m not exaggerating either. I had to pry you from his hands and repeat myself several times. But he came around and between the two of us, we managed to stop you from dying and stabilise the bleed effect. See if you can stand.”

I wrapped the sheet around my body, toga-style, to hide my nakedness and stood. “How long was I out?”

“Four days. Durg’un put you into a coma and slowed down your body’s functions. It’s the only thing that saved you. Balance on one leg.”

“Is everyone else okay?”

“More than okay. Life in Blackwood is more or less back to normal.”

“What?”

That didn’t make sense, but then, most of what he was saying didn’t make much sense. However, this wasn’t the first time I’d woken somewhere strange, where a lot had happened and I had no recollection, so I didn’t freak out. Experience had taught me to just go with the flow until I got my feet under me.

Yaceb chuckled. “From what we now understand, Chief Durg’un stained his honour when he attacked you. His actions publicly declared you an honourless liar. But when Fitz handed him your gift, it proved him wrong in a way he couldn’t refute. His clan apparently takes their honour more seriously than most. Once we stabilized you, he took his axe and cut a braid from his beard. He gave you a beard oath that he would stand between your clan and his people. If any dwarf brings harm to the people of Blackwood while they’re here, he will take his own life.”

Yaceb walked over to the nearby dresser where he kept his medical supplies and picked up a plaited braid of brown hair with a leather strap. He held out the braid to me. “You need to wear this until his oath is fulfilled and give it back when he has.”

I stared at the offering.

It was two feet long.

I’d look ridiculous wearing it. “Why do I have to wear it?”

“Because it means you publicly accept his oath and his apology.”

I didn’t move to take it. “This is an apology?”

“I can’t imagine it being anything else. The only other time a dwarf of his station has given a beard oath to a human was when the dwarven kings and chiefs gave a beard oath to our king that they would help us settle this continent. Radian was literally founded on these oaths. It is a part of our history that every child knows.”

I took the leather thong and slipped it over my head. “What happened to the gift I wanted to give him?”

“Jeric has it.”

That was a relief. I was going to be really pissed off if the dwarf had it. Not that it would matter if he did. If he tried to open the box, the contents would be destroyed.

“How long do I have to stay here?”

“You can leave whenever you want. If you had woken babbling nonsense, I would have had to get the cleric, but since you are speaking clearly and have passed all my examinations, you’re completely fine. You should eat before you do anything else, though. Your body needs to replace the stores it lost.”

“I will. Thanks for taking care of me, Yaceb.”

Yaceb smirked. “I’ve had half the women in the village volunteering to help me. I’ve had to do very little work myself.”

I groaned. “How many people have seen me naked?”

Yaceb laughed. “I restricted my helpers to only women you have slept with, to protect your dignity, since I know how you feel about such things. There were a surprisingly large number of volunteers even after I requested confirmation from their logs. You’ll have to find some way to thank them for their assistance.” He laughed again, amused by his joke. “Clean clothes are in the bottom drawer. And Jeric and Isabelle would like to talk to you.”

* * *

The evening air was damp with the promise of rain as I knocked on the manor’s front door. Someone had given me a sponge bath while I was unconscious, and the clothes I wore were spotless, so I waited to see how Hamlin would complain. He was annoyed with me for using Emily’s quiet room so often and had started making scathing comments every time he saw me.

Hamlin answered, saw it was me, and rolled his eyes. “Damn. I was hoping you were dead.”

I grinned back. “If I die, who will you use your snippy butler routine on?”

Hamlin gave an exaggerated sigh. “You make the mistake that I enjoy the distress your presence brings me. Without you around, I’ll be back to my cheerful self.”

“Well, that’s just one more reason for me to live. I quite enjoy being spiteful when it’s directed towards you.”

“A pity. Now would you like me to inform Master Jeric and Mistress Isabelle that you have arrived, or would you prefer to barge in unannounced like an uncivilised scoundrel?”

“Don’t tempt me like that,” I said, stepping past him, heading for the hallway. “One of these days I might take you up on that offer to act civilised.”

“I live and hope. They’re in the dining room. Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, please.”

I walked down the hall and into the dining room. Isabelle and Jeric were seated facing each other, eating what looked like pumpkin soup. Isabelle’s right arm was wrapped in a sling, and her hand was covered in bandages.

A small growl escaped me, as the anger I’d been suppressing roared its indignation.

Isabelle turned, pressed her lips together, like she didn’t approve. “Calm down, Arnold,” she said, watching my eyes intensely.

“Give me one good reason.”

Isabelle waited until I met her gaze and then indicated her injury. “This would have happened even if Chief Durg’un hadn’t assaulted you. I wasn’t aware my mana channels weren’t robust enough to handle my blessing-expanded mana pool.”

“If he hadn’t attacked me—”

“I would have tried to cast the same spell at some other point and received a similar injury. I’ve neglected my craft and paid the price. This is something all those who possess the wizard class are aware of. And it is my fault, not anyone else’s.”

I turned to Jeric, trying to get a feel for his opinion. The man had a temper when his family was in danger or had come to harm. It wasn’t something he could hide. Jeric was concerned, but not angry.

I decided to believe her.

Not immediately taking her word for it probably made me a crappy friend, but Isabelle knew my temperament as well as her husband, and I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to my face to deescalate a situation. I wouldn’t put it past Jeric either. Hell, I’d do it to them too if I thought it was for their own good, which is probably why we were all friends.

Hamlin carried in a tray, holding a bowl of soup, and set it down on the table, so he could place down cutlery. With quick, deft motions another seat was added to the table, then he was gone.

I took the chair next to Jeric and grabbed a roll. Isabelle had a rule about not talking about business at the dinner table. So, I settled for small talk, as I’d dipped a chunk of bread into the soup, leaving it there to soak it up. “Yaceb tells me the village is more or less back to normal.”

Jeric and Isabelle’s gaze flicked to the braid of beard hair I was wearing. Then they looked at each other and said, “We’ll talk about it after dinner.”

I shrugged and started to eat.

“Emily’s enjoying her studies,” Jeric said, before going into detail about what her recent letter said.

She’d taken a room at an expensive boarding house which catered to the Academy of Law’s female students. They’d had several vacancies with the New Year, but it was Jeric’s father who had gotten her in. The boarding house was only open to the most influential families in the kingdom, and the friendships made there could create empires. It wasn’t the sort of place in which a small village noble would be found, unless someone pulled some strings.

I nodded and made comments at the right time, trying not to let my frustration show. There was no fire. No monsters. Nothing that demanded my immediate attention, but I wanted to know what the dwarves were up to. I was four days out of the loop, and this was a big deal.

But, it turned out I was hungrier than I thought. The first bowl of soup vanished before either of them was halfway done. I ate a second and then a third, finishing off all the rolls. I mourned my empty bowl as Hamlin carried it away, but didn’t ask him to bring me anything else. He’d given me everything he’d cooked, and it would be rude for me to ask for more.

We retired to the sitting room to talk over brandy.

Jeric cleared his throat. “They’re building a dwarven forge under the north-eastern section of your farm. That’s why there are so many here.”

I frowned. “Why are they building a forge?”

“We don’t know,” Isabelle replied. “But Chief Durg’un asked us not to tell anyone. Fitz is the only person outside this home who knows what’s going on.”

“Why the secrecy?”

She shrugged. “We don’t know that either. And we didn’t feel like it was appropriate for us to ask.”

“My wife means we were too scared to,” Jeric said. “Something is happening here in Blackwood that the dwarves aren’t happy about. It’s something they’re trying to cover up, and we don’t want to be part of what they have to cover up.”

Isabelle nodded. “Chief Durg’un has asked to speak with you. We’d appreciate it if you could ask him why we need to keep this a secret.” She pointed to the braid. “Your unique position will protect you.”

I frowned, not liking what I was hearing. “Yaceb said that he gave his oath to protect Blackwood.”

“And he’s kept that oath,” Jeric said. “He stands watch from Arnold’s Hill every night, intercepting his people that try to kill ours. But his oath only lasts until they leave. He could return and kill us himself, but not you. His oath protects you. You would have to slay his blood kin for him to raise his hand against you.”

“Do you want me to go talk to him now?”

They both nodded.

* * *

I’d intended to only stop at Gretel’s inn for however long it took her to get me a pair of steins filled with Ririon’s sour mushroom stout, to fulfil my half of dwarven etiquette. But the moment I walked through the door, people started cheering. I’d had to put up with handshakes, back pats, and several tearful hugs from trapsmiths of all people, before I could even make it to the bar. Everyone wanted to see the beard oath hanging from my neck to make sure the rumours were real.

There was a nervous energy in the room. And it felt like it could easily break over into something darker, something that would have people rioting in the streets. So I had to lengthen my stop and help people calm down. But the beard oath was the only topic anyone wanted to talk about.

Wendell explained the oath was the only reason he could sleep at night, which was a scary thing to hear from a man who drank himself into a stupor every day of the week. I thought he was overreacting, but a lot of others felt the same way, even scholar Zector, and he thought being knocked down by a giant’s roar was a fun time. So I listened to what everyone had to say and let everyone know the oath was real.

When the room had settled, I took the steins and headed for Arnold’s Hill.

The weather had turned by this point, and I could feel the rain getting closer. I set out at a brisk walk, reaching the bottom of the hill in short order. The climb to the top was at least five times longer than in the past, due to all the dirt they’d added to the hill from making the sewers, but it didn’t bother me. Except for the part that I still had no idea why Pavatin needed it to be so high. However, after seeing the sewers, I knew it would be impressive.

I found Chief Durg’un at the top of the hill, under a tent that had the sides rolled up. He was seated on a collection of furs leaning against a mound of pillows, watching hundreds of dwarven steam wagons and workers in the distance. They were dragging massive granite blocks out of the ground and piling them up, despite the late hour.

He sighed as I reached the edge of his tent and began speaking without looking over. “I’m sorry for how I treated you, Landlord Arnold.” His voice was heavy and deep, rumbling out each syllable. “I was in a foul mood and mistook you for a common, lying merchant and thought you were trying to ply me for trade, like a border swindler. Instead, you were the human I was here to see, and you were following the customs of my people as a host to a guest, prepared to share an experience with me that I have only known once in my life, an experience that haunts my dreams and causes me to smile at the memory even centuries later.”

“That’s a nicely dressed up way of saying you behaved like a complete asshole,” I said, knocking my boots of speed against my ankles for the dirt to fall off.

I’d decided not to hold my tongue, trusting everyone’s assessment of the oath.

I stepped onto the furs and took a seat beside him, passing him a tankard. “I apologise that it’s a little sloshed around, but it would have been rude of me to take the time to bring a barrel out here.” I said the words overly politely just to drive the wedge in that I was treating him properly.

Durg’un stared at the tankard. “I’d heard Ririon made a pilgrimage here to support the cause, but I am continually amazed to find a human who made such a good impression upon him that he left such gifts.”

“Really?”

Durg’un nodded. “Ririon’s finest sour mushroom stout has never sat on the shelves of a common inn. When I detected its presence through my wards, I lost myself to greed. Even with my standing, I struggle to get my hands on more than a single cask of his lesser sour stout each year. To see an entire barrel on an inn’s shelves for purchase made me lose all perspective. I simply had to have it. Otherwise, I might never have the opportunity again.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“Have you tried not being a dick?”

Durg’un grunted, started to scowl, and then shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. That old dwarf can smell insincerity like an old stone-chaser can smell gems.”

I snorted at his comment and took a drink, squeezing my face as the pleasant sour waves filled my mouth.

Durg’un’s scowl deepened as he saw the face I made. He took a drink from his tankard, smiling at the taste. It was the kind of smile a father gives their first born. He lowered the tankard and sighed like a man content with this life and ready to leave it.

Then he took a deep breath and sighed again with much less contentment. “I am not here by choice, Landlord Arnold. My clan owes King Grorion a substantial debt. He hung it over my head to make me complicit in his scheme and to keep these murderous bastards from slaughtering your village.”

I paused, uncomfortable with his honesty. “It’s really that bad?”

“There are 800 dwarves here who can walk above ground without succumbing to sickness. Only half of them have received their papers to travel within your kingdom. The other half is made up of opportunists who will slaughter your village if they think they can get away without injury. At least 120 of them will try even if they are injured.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I committed atrocities against my people in order to save yours while we travelled here. My actions sicken me. I am supposed to be a defender of dwarves; instead, I am their butcher.”

“I’m sorry you have had to do this.” I actually meant it. There was open horror in the dwarf’s tone. The kind you don’t often hear.

“It is not your fault. King Grorion could have contacted our merchants, dwarves who feel no temptation to harm your people and trade with them frequently. But he chose to send these instead, because he could buy their silence.”

“He sounds like a dick.”

Durg’un chuckled. “There is never enough wealth to go around, and if you put more in one place, there will be less in another. The money he saves by using me will go to keeping his people fed and clothed.”

“So, he’s a pragmatic dick.”

“All good kings are.”

“What about great kings?”

He chuckled harder. “No idea, never met one.”

He seemed to be in a better mood, so I decided to ask the question Jeric and Isabelle wanted answered. “I’m told you are building a dwarven forge.”

“Speak carefully, Landlord Arnold. If you say that in front of any of the dwarves down there, they will draw a weapon on you.”

“So, it’s not a dwarven forge?”

“It’s a travesty of a dwarven forge, a crime against all dwarven artisans. King Grorion was wise enough not to build it in his holdings, but not wise enough to abandon his scheme. Its existence would cause open rebellion in our lands. Its existence outside is only a little better.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, yet. It is what it will become that is the crime.”

“So, the weapon that can kill the giant is something your people consider to be a crime?”

“The weapon King Grorion’s enchanters created is an artistic masterpiece. It is the weapon we must build you to deliver it that is a crime.”

“Okay, I’m lost.”

Durg’un took a pull from his tankard and sighed. “The weapon King Grorion’s enchanters have created is an enchanted bolt the size of what you would use in a large ballista. It is made from the skeletal spike of a bone titan. Bone titans have an ability to convert their HP to bone, growing new layers of defence as it is destroyed. King Grorion’s enchanters have found a way to preserve and then increase this effect. The bolt they’ve made will quickly siphon the health of any living creature it touches, converting that health to bone and damaging it further. The smaller tests have been horrific.”

“What’s so troubling about the weapon I have to use to deliver it?”

“You are a farmer, and your quest requires us to give you a method that will allow you to gain experience from defending your farm. You cannot use a ballista, as your class does not allow it. All you can use is a crossbow.” He paused. “How much do you know about dwarven forges?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Then this will be hard to follow. Our system is not like your system.”

“Actually, your system and our system are sub-systems of a larger system.”

Durg’un turned to me, confused. “What?”

“Just trust me. I’m an expert in system theory.”

“What, explain?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I sold the knowledge to my king.”

“Should you have told me what you did, then?”

“Probably not, but it has been a few months, so the information has started to circulate. Anyway, we’re off topic. We were talking about dwarven forges.

“Yes, my apologies. Dwarven forges are magical buildings, but they are not like human magical buildings. They don’t need a village or town to feed from. They are more like an independent, living entity, a tree with five branches that grows the potential of weapons, armour, tools, vehicles, and miscellaneous items. Working in a forge generates experience for both dwarf and forge, and with this experience, the forge can level. Each time a forge levels, the forge receives five specialisation points for each branch. With these points, we can purchase upgrades that allow them to…”

“Specialize. I get it.”

“Good. Now, every dwarven forge in existence has five unique specializations. Items that they produce better than any other forge. Dwarves take pride in all forges, whether or not they are within their kingdom, and no forge has ever been mistreated the way this forge will be. I am ashamed to be a part of its creation.”

“What are you going to do to this one that’s so bad?”

Durg’un scowled. “There are a series of upgrades along the weapon and armour branches that allow dwarven forges to oversize items without losing their classification. They plan to purchase this specialised upgrade multiple times to craft you a crossbow the size of a ballista, that the system will still register as a crossbow. There is only one dwarven forge that has ever purchased this upgrade, and it was done so to produce daggers the size of short swords. It was purchased to make a weapon for a dwarf chief to be used in conjunction with his ultimate ability that required a dagger, and its purchase is considered a waste by almost every dwarf, including the chief who received the weapon.”

“I know nothing about blacksmithing beyond making nails, so why is size a problem? Can’t you just make something bigger?”

“Yes, and no. A dwarven greatsword in my hands would be a two-handed weapon, and it would force me to use abilities that require a two-handed weapon. If you were to pick it up, it would be a dwarven longsword. It would have the option to be used with one hand or two. Increasing the size of a weapon changes it within the system. We understand why the upgrade exists, but we don’t understand why it is accessible multiple times. There is no reason to produce weapons so large.”

I sipped my drink, forgetting where I was for a moment. “It’s probably there so you can make weapons that meet the requirements for your abilities when you advance to the stage where you can build mechs.”

Durg’un turned and stared at me, mouth dropping open. “I don’t understand that last word. Would you please explain? If you know why this ability exists, it would mean a lot to my people.”

I shrugged. I’d been spit-balling, and more than a little sarcastic, but my conclusion made sense to me, considering what I understood of the system. “Do you have magical armour that moves on its own?”

Durg’un shook his head.

“Can you summon stone golems or stone elementals?”

“I do not know what the two words after stone are.”

“You have steam wagons. Do you know how they work?”

“Yes.”

“Well imagine a steam wagon, except it is shaped like a dwarf, and instead of the steam turning wheels, it turns gears and pistons that allow the dwarf-shaped steam wagon to move like a regular dwarf.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“Pretend it does for a moment. Now a mech would be one of these metal dwarves, and inside would be a dwarf using it to fight. The system will probably only consider the mech to be armour or a vehicle, so I’d guess the oversized weapon upgrade is there to allow the dwarf controlling this machine a way to use the weapon abilities that he already has, instead of needing new specialized ones.”

“I can imagine the creation you describe. I cannot imagine how it would be created, but your reasoning and explanation make enough sense for me to give this further thought.”

Durg’un glowed for a second after he spoke and the dwarf frowned. I recognised the glow. It was the same sort of glow I gave off when I received my first rank of lore.

“I didn’t think I said enough to unlock a new lore for you?”

“You didn’t. Your knowledge has given me a quest from the system.”

My eyes widened. “Wait, you get quests from the system? Do all dwarves get quests from the system? I don’t get quests from the system.”

I wanted quests from the system.

“Only chiefs and kings receive quests. The same applies to your champions and kings among humans.”

Damn it.

“What does it say?” I realised how rude the question was only after asking and hastily added, “If you don’t mind sharing.”

Durg’un smiled. “The sage has shown you a glimpse of your people’s future. The path lies before you. Find the one who can use this knowledge to help your people grow.”

“Is there a reward?”

“A quest from the system is reward enough. It is a confirmation that you are doing something necessary. To ignore it is to ignore the success of your people. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me. I owe you another debt.”

“Well, at least you now know that upgrade has a purpose, and it’s not a waste of your time.”

“That is not good news.”

“Why?”

“We laid down the heart of the forge this morning. The process of creation has begun and cannot be stopped. We were planning to destroy this forge before we left, to hide what we had done, justifying our action because we believed it an abomination, but it is not an abomination, merely born before its time. Its destruction is unacceptable and its existence outside our realms a blight on our honour.”

“So, you’ve got to decide if you want to tell everyone the truth and cause a fuss, or keep it to yourself and let everyone destroy something they shouldn’t. Good luck.”

“You would keep this secret?”

I shrugged. “It costs me nothing.”

“Yet it leaves you with the ability to blackmail me, if you so choose.”

“Only if you decide honesty is not in your people’s best interests.”

“I could kill you.”

There was no emotion when he said the words. He sounded much like an accountant who was trying to balance numbers. It was unsettling.

“I don’t doubt you could. However, it would put King Grorion in a rather shameful position, and it would break your beard oath to protect the people of this village. But that is your choice. I can’t stop you.”

“You are braver than most I have met to be so calm before my threat.”

“I come from a world where there was no system to protect us from each other by making us turn feral. The concept of walking near strangers who might, on a whim, step behind me and slit my throat is not a new experience. I’m used to living under a social contract of decency. The fact we are having this conversation proves that it is not impossible for us to coexist peacefully. And if we cannot, there is nothing I can do to stop you, so why worry? Besides, I’ve quite enjoyed meeting dwarves up until I met you. I would rather you not tarnish the good impression your people have made on me, so I will treat you as the exception, not the rule when dealing with dwarves.”

I didn’t add that I had a greater fearless mark, which was repressing most of the fear I should have been feeling. It was better that he thought I was a calm, calculating individual.

Chief Durg’un snorted. “Ohhh, I am certainly the exception to the rule, as you will soon come to learn. I see the first attempt of the evening is beginning. Excuse me, Landlord Arnold, but I must interrupt our conversation to save your people.”

Durg’un grabbed his two-handed spiked axe, stood, and then dashed forwards and leapt, crossing several hundred feet. I leaned forward to look over the edge. He hit the ground more than five hundred feet below, like he’d stepped from a staircase and was off sprinting through the empty fields. I turned and raced down the ramp, building speed. Within seconds I was at ground level and racing after him.

Even after what Durg’un had done, I didn’t understand everyone’s fear of the dwarves, not in a way that wasn’t abstract. I’d heard it repeated enough that I took it seriously, and my own opinions painted a bleak picture, but there is something different about witnessing it firsthand. I’d learned that from studying the holocaust in high school. Two weeks of reading numbers and written accounts didn’t have anywhere near the impact of fifteen minutes of black and white footage, showing pits filled with people who had starved to death and prisoners too malnourished to even stand.

Those horrific images were etched into my soul, making the abstract concrete and irrefutable. It had changed how I viewed those events ever since. Changing me so there was no going back to what I was before.

So I chased after him.

Even with all my buffs to movement speed, I couldn’t catch him. There was so much risk involved with me running all out that I never did it, but even if I had, I’m not sure I would have kept up.

The gap between us grew.

We crossed the majority of the farm in short order, and I saw when Durg’un reached his target, because he tackled the dwarf and they bounced across the ground. I arrived on the scene a few moments later, to see Durg’un, sitting on the back of a one-armed dwarf, holding his good arm in a painful grip, twisting it behind his back. The other arm was cut off at the elbow, and the stump was bandaged and bloody.

We were half a mile away from the northern hamlet, so a long way from the dwarves’ camp. That showed as the smaller dwarf was panting from his sprint, eyes wild like a panicked animal.

Durg’un spat to the side of the dwarf’s face. “Sarion, you poor excuse for an idiot. What’s your story this time? Out for a stroll under the moonlight perhaps, or did you hear another baby crying and were just going to check up on it?”

“Krosgur told me to come and get you, Chief Durg’un. There’s trouble in the tunnels.”

“You were heading towards the northern hamlet, Sarion. Not towards my perch.”

“I was told you were checking on the Landlord.”

“I don’t enter their village after sundown. Krosgur knows that. And once again, that was not where you were headed.” Durg’un leapt to his feet, bringing his axe down in the same movement. The blade blurred, and for a second, I thought nothing had happened. Then Sarion rolled away, leaving behind all of his arm below the shoulder, explaining how he’d lost the rest. “That’s your third warning, you dwarven stain,” Durg’un said, before stomping the other dwarf on the head and knocking him out.

Durg’un turned to the side and grimaced, clearly pained by his actions. “I can’t abide honourless liars. We both know why he’s here. But he would rather play children’s games with the truth and soil his honour by chasing a small chance that I spare him suffering.”

I looked at the place where the dwarf’s arm had connected to the shoulder, seeing flesh, blood, and bone. “Is he going to bleed out?”

“He’s fine,” Durg’un said, flicking the blood off his axe, before bending down to pick up the unconscious dwarf by his collar. “It takes more than losing an arm to kill a dwarf. He’ll be able to work by midday. He’s one of the tough ones, which is the only good thing I can say about him. He’s already on his third warning, and I haven’t deterred him yet. He’ll be running around armless within another few weeks if he doesn’t wisen up.” He turned to look at me. “Now, why are you out here, Landlord Arnold? If you plan to take his head, I’ll stop you. I don’t care that he intended to kill your kind. I don’t care that he would not have stopped at the children. I don’t care how angry you are. If you raise your hand with the intent to kill my people before they have done the same to yours, I will strike it down.”

“Everyone I know has been terrified ever since I agreed to let you come. I needed to see what they feared to understand it.”

Durg’un didn’t seem to believe me. “You had to know the risks. Why accept King Grorion’s offer if you were afraid? He would have respected your position if you refused.”

“You weren’t the only person manipulated by your ruler,” I said. “I was tricked into letting him take my quest before I knew how many dwarves were needed.”

“You could have contacted him directly with this knowledge.”

“I could have,” I admitted. “But King Grorion agreed to supply Radian with this weapon. If it works, places like Blackwood won’t have to evacuate in the future. That’s not the sort of offer you can easily turn down. What’s one village against dozens?”

“A hard choice.”

“One I have to live with.”

Durg’un paused. “Would you like to help me keep your people safe?”

“I’m not sure what I can do to help? Your people can pull me limb from limb.”

“They’re here to fulfil your quest on behalf of King Grorion. It would end in death if they killed you. So they won’t.”

“I still can’t stop them.”

“But you’ve got the speed to get in their way.”

I stared for several seconds, trying to make sure I understood his meaning. “You want me to be a human shield?”

“Yes.”

Everyone was in danger because of me, because I hadn’t contacted the adventurers’ guild and asked them to kill the giant. Because I hadn’t been willing to turn down the chance that this might work. I’d done this. I’d put everyone in danger, because I thought it was worth it. There was only one thing I could say to live with myself and look into a mirror without hating what I saw.

“I’m in.”

“Good. Dispose of his limb for me. Then I’ll meet you back at my tent. In the morning, I’ll introduce you to my people so they don’t unknowingly kill you. We find it hard to tell humans apart with only their appearance, so you might want to consider wearing the same clothing every day.”

STEP 33

THE WORLD WON’T ALWAYS BE NICE TO YOU

The rain arrived just after midnight, leaving the ground soft and easy to work. I would have preferred it hard and difficult. I needed to calm down. I needed to work through my frustration.

I needed to hit something.

The sunrise warmed my back as I gripped Ranic’s enchanted hoe and slammed the blade into the soil as hard as I could. A ripple travelled along the blue overlay, quickly spreading across the field before reaching the edge and bouncing back. I tugged the hoe from the soil, flinging rich, dark earth aside, and raised it for a second swing.

I brought the hoe back down as the ripple vanished, timing my swing perfectly. I tore the soil from the ground again, scattering it across the field without thought as I raised the hoe, imagining I was staring at a dwarf’s head.

My night with Durg’un had been eye-opening. His people had tried to reach the north hamlet 11 times, with every one of them intent on slaughtering the villagers in and around it. Some had denied their intent, but others had stated it with pride, daring Durg’un to strike them.

Killing a village the size of Blackwood would gain the murderer more experience than he could earn in 10,000 years of hard work, quadrupling their lifespan and enriching their clan’s standard of living. The cost of having a dwarf cleric regrow their limbs was only a year’s wages. If their intent was anything but slaughtering everyone around me, I would’ve said the benefits were worth the risk.

Instead, all I could say was, “Fuck dwarves.”

Apparently, the sight of me working a field so early in the morning was alarming enough to worry the guards, because less than half an hour after starting, Ranic arrived. He didn’t comment or try to get me to speak. He just started critiquing my form and guiding my actions.

Eventually, I opened up, explaining what I’d seen. One night of blood had washed away my boyhood fantasy of cheerful, drunk dwarves. The Nazi-like, venomous hate some of the dwarves had for humans left me physically ill.

Unless you’ve looked into the eyes of someone who you know, with the very core of your being, would joyfully slit the throats of everyone you cherish and sleep more soundly because of it, you can’t understand what I saw.

Their gazes were etched into my soul now.

“Hopefully, you now understand our wariness. Perhaps, in the future, you won’t judge us so harshly.”

I scowled and took another swing. “Durg’un wants me there every night after sundown.”

“I’m surprised he believes you can help?”

“I don’t think that’s the reason he wants me around. I think he’s trying to improve our relationship and stop me from disliking him.

“Why does he care?”

“He doesn’t, but he can’t get to Ririon’s special reserve without me.”

* * *

Jeric reached over to the bottle of brandy he kept in the corner of the parlour, picking it up and snagging a glass before putting it on the table in front of him. Dark liquid poured into the vessel, stopping just below the brim. It was the largest glass of brandy I’d ever seen him pour.

Isabelle took the drink as he finished pouring and slammed it back so fast there was no way she tasted it. Jeric didn’t say a word. He just grabbed a second glass and started filling.

Isabelle let out a frustrated breath. “He told you they intended to destroy the forge?”

“It’s no wonder they want to keep this a secret,” Jeric said. He didn’t slam his drink back like Isabelle. He just stared at it.

“Only for some of us,” I said.

Isabelle eyed her husband’s drink. “A dwarven forge costs nearly as much to establish as a city, Arnold. This is no different than our king building a city, only to tear it down.”

“They’ll accept the cost if he’s successful,” Jeric said. “There is nothing dwarves want more than to see giants go extinct.”

Isabelle placed her empty glass in front of her husband. “But only if he’s successful, which makes what’s happening here make a great deal more sense.”

I stared at the two of them. “How does any of this make sense?”

Jeric glanced up at me, then nodded to his wife and started pouring. “Imagine a manly mayor who sells all the land his village owns for nothing but the chance for his daughter to keep her class. Imagine how upset this man’s wife would be if she knew he was doing something so ridiculous. Now imagine this man doesn’t tell her until after he has gone ahead with his plan and now holds the experience his daughter needs several times over.”

Isabelle took her brandy and sipped at it. “A lot can be forgiven when a handsome man provides such results,” she said, smirking at her husband.

Jeric returned the smirk. “Yes, such a man might have proven himself unfit to be mayor, but what does that matter when all he cares about is safe?” Jeric turned to me. “King Grorion is taking a risk and hoping that reward is worth the cost, but he’s also covering himself. He chose these dwarves because they could be bought. They won’t talk about what happened here. So if they don’t succeed, no dwarf will ever know what he did here.”

“Where does that leave me?”

Jeric shrugged, wearily. “Do as Durg’un asked. Help him protect Blackwood.” He picked up his drink and slammed it back.

STEP 34

SOMETIMES BIG PROBLEMS HAVE SMALL SOLUTIONS

The way the breeze hit the sides of Arnold’s Hill left a chill in the early hours of the morning. Durg’un and I had fallen into a routine over the past few weeks as we sat our watch, protecting Blackwood. We generally started the night with an hour of boredom, followed by a few minutes of excitement and brutality, and then another hour of boredom. It would get a bit more intense between midnight and 3am, but things would settle down after.

We would occasionally talk during the boring periods, but never for long and never about anything important. It wasn’t from lack of trying on my part. I wanted to know more about their system, but our first conversation was eating away at Durg’un. It was clear that he didn’t know what to do about the forge. He was conflicted and worried, so any time I asked about something to do with their system, he shut up.

So, I played guitar and sang, or worked on the designs for technology I wanted to bring here, trying to find productive ways to pass the long hours through the night. When I sang, I mostly sang cheerful songs. Anything else tended to bring down both our moods.

Durg’un’s head snapped to the right towards the automated barns while I was singing “American Pie”. He’d seen all sorts of monsters and beasts go into them over the past week and never shown concern or interest, not asking a single question. It didn’t involve him, so it wasn’t his business.

His people didn’t go that way either.

Not anymore.

It was partly to do with the fact there were only a few dozen farmers in that direction and partly to do with the fact that the only dwarf who had tried had been returned the following morning in small chunks, having activated one of the trapdoors.

“There’s a young burtag heading towards your southern barns. You should warn your people. It won’t be so easy to kill.”

I’d read The Monsters Compendium. The encyclopaedia set, not the abridged version. With my memory, it only took a few seconds to recall what I knew about them.

A burtag was an insect monstrosity that shared a lot of similarities with a beetle. If a beetle grew larger than a Komododile, walked slower, and was much harder to kill. They wandered in as a group spread over a few hundred miles, following a scout, so the only time they ever came near a village was if the scout was resistant to the village aura. But Blackwood’s aura was almost non-existent, so that likely wouldn’t be a problem for them anymore.

Which was bad.

They were considered village-ending threats.

I was running the moment I remembered how dangerous they were.

* * *

I made it to the southern barn before the burtag reached the edge of the forest and raced inside. Lamps hung from the rafters providing light, illuminating the red- highlighted floor where the traps lay. I wove my way through the barn, past the goat pen to the back, before ripping open the control room door.

The sight that greeted me was not what I expected to see. I expected to see a couple of operators sitting on chairs, one with a book, and the other watching through the peephole. That’s not what I saw.

I slammed the door shut as quickly as I opened it. “Put your dicks away and get some pants on in the next five seconds if you idiots don’t want to experience a quick, horrible death!”

“Oh, shit! I think that was the boss,” one of them said, voice muffled through the door.

I waited all of five seconds and then opened the door again, embarrassed as much as I was pissed off.

My two-man policy for the manual barns was designed to keep people safe, give two sets of eyes to react and help people stay awake. It was not designed to add to people’s distractions. Distractions which were now a permanent part of my memory.

The two gentlemen in question were in the middle of trying to do up their belts. I scanned their faces, beyond furious, and started channelling my inner Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. “Argon and Etrin, you idiots just earned yourselves a one-way trip back to basic training in the morning. I’d kick both your sorry asses from here to the village if there wasn’t a bloody burtag on its way here, so you assholes are in luck. You get one more night of fun before it’s back to long days of running drills until you weep.”

“Sorry sir. We—”

“Shut up, I’m talking. The automated barns aren’t designed for anything as large as a burtag, so I’m going to lure it in here. I need you two to hit it with everything you have. I don’t mean one or two traps. I mean, every single one at your disposal.”

“Yes, sir,” they said together, finally finishing with their belts.

“All those traps probably won’t kill this bastard, so when it’s a third of the way inside, one of you is going to have to start making a run for it. I want you up the ladder immediately. The other is going to have to stay until it is halfway in.”

“What about after that, sir?” Etrin asked.

“After that, I’ll take over and save your asses while you’re running. Get our escape path clear and ready now, and keep this door open. I’m going to go bait this bastard. Give me two of your spears.”

“Yes, sir,” they said together, before fumbling over two of the spears sitting in the weapons rack against the side wall.

I turned and raced out of the barn.

As I shot through the door, Salem ran past. I didn’t slow. I’d felt him closing in and didn’t want to give anything away that I knew he was coming.

A second later, he caught up.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “I’ve finally managed to make this operation run adequately, and I don’t need you disrupting that.”

“There’s a burtag. Durg’un warned me.”

“You informed Argon and Etrin?”

“Right after I caught them fucking on the job.”

“I believe the term is fucking around.”

“Not in this case.”

“Oh…ohhh. I see. What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to lure it to their barn and hit it with everything we have. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to do it again. Let’s just hope it’s not a scout.”

I reached the southernmost automated barn and slowed to a stop, hiding behind it. The massive building looked like a cross between an old English barn and an Amish barn, standing three storeys tall with enough space to fit several houses inside. A twenty-foot troll could walk in without scraping its head, so I could have hidden a small army behind it.

Brek had thankfully managed to double the number of automated barns we had along the border, so there was now only a 100-yard gap between them. That was plenty of space to lure the burtag through.

Salem started talking. “A burtag is too big to go through the trapdoor, and too well-armoured for the axes to be more than marginally effective.”

“Have you got a better plan?”

“Yes, let it go into one of the automated barns. Hopefully, some small injury it receives will spook it and chase it off. You will lose the barn, but that is the price of doing business.”

The burtag strode out of the forest, taking slow, lazy steps onto the farm, unconcerned for its safety, as it made its way towards the barn we were hiding behind. It kind of looked like a smaller version of the fire-breathing beetle from Starship Troopers, except its legs were thick like an elephant instead of thin like most beetles. It needed those legs to support the weight of its thick exoskeleton.

The burtag was big enough that I wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom of its thorax if I stood under it holding my hand up, but it was far from fully grown, which was good, because it meant we had a chance.

I stared at it long enough to analyse it.

I got a lot more information now that my intelligence was higher, but I still didn’t get all of it, since I was a farmer. I couldn’t see how much armour it had, for one thing. Knowing how much health it had was useless unless I knew I could actually hurt it, and everything I had just read was stuff I already knew. “Does it smell like rotting meat?”

“How do you expect me to answer that when we are up- wind?” Salem asked.

“Can you circle around it? You’re too small for it to bother with. If it doesn’t smell like rotting meat, we’ll let it go into an automated barn and hope it gets spooked. If it does, then we need to take it to the manual barn, because more will be coming.”

“I’d forgotten how dangerous it was working with you, instead of with professionals.”

Salem disappeared, racing off to do recon, looping around the monster before arriving back in less than 10 seconds. “It’s a scout.”

“Shit. I guess I have to do this the hard way.”

I’d practiced throwing my war pitchfork for several months to deal with the giant, and the annual orc cull maxed my spearman skill level, so I was surprisingly lethal with a spear now. I dashed out from behind the barn, running right for it, holding a spear above my shoulder, ready to throw it.

When I was a hundred feet away, I aimed for its mouth and threw. The spear flew through the air flawlessly, flying between its teeth to strike its tongue, or whatever was in the middle of its mouth.

The burtag reared back and gave a high-pitched shriek, like it had bitten its tongue. It dropped its head down and scanned its surroundings, recognising me as the source of its annoyance and taking offence.

I backpedalled through the grass, pivoted when I was sure it was following, and started to run, staying ahead of it as it lumbered after me. There was a lot of open ground between the line of automated and manual barns, but I got most of the way before it slowed, at which point I turned and threw the second spear. This time the spear skittered off its armour, but that pissed it off enough to put on more speed.

Monsters were wired for aggression, so it didn’t take much to make them see red. They also had an innate ability to sense their prey’s strength, so their instincts told them farmers were nothing but a pesky meal. It was why they always followed me into the barns and why they rarely approached if there were warriors anywhere nearby.

About ten yards out from the entrance, I activated Lowheart’s Lungs and yelled, “It’s coming!” I shot across the trapdoor at the entrance and put on more speed, weaving between the hazards that were highlighted by my interface.

I heard traps activating behind me as the burtag lumbered into the barn, in hot pursuit. The sound of wooden beams breaking and even steel wrenching followed me as I made my way forward.

I reached the control box in time to see Argon’s legs disappear up the ladder and started pulling levers. The burtag had several axes stuck in its side, with a log spear in its front, right shoulder. Yellow blood oozed from the injury, but it was far from dead. My hands moved from lever to lever, as I slammed them up and down, activating a cascade of traps.

More log spears and swinging axes dropped from the ceiling, adding to the damage, but it clearly wasn’t going to be enough to finish it off quickly. I pulled the last five levers as quickly as I could and then turned and leapt at the ladder, activating my double jump ability, getting three quarters of the way to the top in a single leap, before scurrying up the last few rungs. I was halfway towards the hayloft door when the burtag struck the control box, shaking the entire barn.

I didn’t slow.

I hit the edge of the hayloft door and leapt, knowing where the pitfalls waited below. I tried to tuck into a roll with the landing, like those guys that practice parkour do, but I ended up faceplanting and grinding my body across the dirt in the worst way possible.

You have taken 87 fall damage.

It hurt like hell, but my adrenaline was pumping, and my constitution made the injury a fraction of what it would have been without it, which is probably the only reason I didn’t break my neck.

I pulled myself to my feet and started running, dismissing the prompt. The sounds of shattering wood followed me as I caught up to the two idiots and slowed. “Fall back to the southern hamlet; you’ve done your part for the night.”

The two of them looked at me a little wide-eyed, from their first experience with something a barn couldn’t easily handle.

Argon found his voice first. “Sir, if we had realised something that dangerous might be coming we would have—”

“You would have continued to ignore your training,” I said bluntly. “Something that dangerous is always coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Your job isn’t just to be prepared for the threats we know about and can deal with; it is to be ready to deal with threats we don’t. You two chose not to take either of those threats seriously, putting people’s lives at risk. If you want to apologise to someone, go apologise to families around the village, those are the people you put in danger. Now go find your superior and give them a full account of what happened here. I need to see if I have to do that again.”

I turned and cut to my right, going wide around the barn, before stopping fifty feet from the entrance. The burtag was lumbering around, disoriented, slamming into walls as its health trickled down. My face and hands were stinging from where they had been scraped raw, but I barely paid them a thought as I watched the burtag.

Salem casually exited the barn, barely concerned by the vicious killing machine he’d shared it with. He padded over and sat down beside me. “It’s dying.”

Even I could tell that. “Do you know why?”

“Charging the control room caused the swinging spear lodged in its shoulder to penetrate the exoskeleton. It cut something important.”

The sounds of things breaking inside the barn continued. “Once it’s dead, I’ll go wake Quilly and talk to her about making a trap to deal with these.”

“Arnold, it is thinking like that which will get someone killed unnecessarily.”

“How?”

“You’re still thinking like you’re alone with only your friends and inner circle. There are over a hundred trapsmiths and a dozen trapsmith scholars sleeping in your village to call upon. Rouse them all and put them to work. Time is not on your side.”

He was right. I was thinking too small. Waking all the trapsmiths wouldn’t be easy, though. They were testy at the best of times. Getting them up in the middle of the night would be tough.

The silence stretched as we waited.

The burtag eventually succumbed to its injuries, and a loot orb appeared above it. I immediately turned and raced towards the village. A plan for safely waking the trapsmiths had formed while I waited for the burtag to die. I had a pair of operators who had recently failed to do their job, risking the village’s safety. They seemed like the perfect candidates for waking the trapsmiths up to help. And it would free me up to explain the situation to Adoya.

* * *

Well done, you have successfully timed your hoe strikes to your interface for an entire row of your field and gained a new rank in your tool proficiency. You can now boast that you can use a hoe as well as any Apprentice.

I smiled as the wave of light hit me. It had taken me ages to reach this point, but I’d finally improved to the stage where it would make a difference. There were faster ways of leveling my hoe proficiency, but I’d been promised that what this method lacked in speed at the early ranks, it made up for at the later ranks. From now on, each of the following ranks should take me less and less time.

Ranic put down his drink on the side table and climbed off the wooden pool chair Kiln built him from my designs. He raised his arms to stretch and then walked over with a relaxed smile, pulling his robe back on. “Congratulations on your new rank, Arnold. Let’s take a break from all this hard work and get an early lunch.”

Ranic’s smirk told me he knew exactly how ridiculous his statement sounded, coming from a man who had been sunbathing for most of the morning.

“I’ve still got plenty of energy,” I said, not wanting to stop now that I was finally getting somewhere.

“While I am pleased with that attitude, working further would be counterproductive. Your body needs time to adjust to the changes.”

I shrugged, willing to listen to his experience.

We wiped the dirt off my tools and put the mundane ones into the wheelbarrow, leaving them beside the field. Ranic’s enchanted ones we threw over our shoulders as we walked back to Blackwood.

“Has Jeric told you how much extra I have to pay for materials to rebuild the village because you and Adoya didn’t share the same design scheme for your houses of scholars?”

Pavatin had to make this weird, yin-yang layout to incorporate their buildings into the natural aesthetics of village design, to maintain an exceptional standard. It was beautiful, but so expensive.

“I heard they want somewhere in the vicinity of 500,000 crowns.”

“That’s the low estimate. It might end up being double that.”

Ranic winced.

“You’re lucky Beldose was on board with the new loan, otherwise I’d be asking you for the money.”

Ranic burst out laughing. “Arnold, your wealth outstripped mine when you made that deal with Noblewoman Rina. I’m not as wealthy as you assume.”

I grinned. “Well, I was going to start with borrowing money from you. Maybe borrow a few crowns from Jeric, and then go to Daris, before finally begging in the village square for coppers.”

Ranic laughed harder. “You’ve always told me you wanted to live in a city. Now you will eventually live in the most beautiful city in Radian. And spend the next century paying it off.”

I groaned; that was far too close to the truth. “Please don’t remind me. I’m having nightmares about Beldose chasing my grandchildren for interest payments.”

Ranic patted me on the shoulder. “Arnold, most successful merchants owe ten coppers for every one they own. If you had to rely on your own wealth to achieve anything of significance, everyone would fail before they could even try. It’s only together we can achieve great accomplishments.”

“Yes, but most people don’t have to pay ten times the usual price for a building to make it prettier.”

I may have been moaning.

Ranic didn’t cut me any slack. “Now, you know that isn’t true, and saying so is rude to those putting in the effort. These buildings will be the pinnacle of design and comfort. They will sit at the place where function and form meet. There will be no better housing or industrial areas in the kingdom.”

“And yet the rent won’t cover the interest.”

Ranic absently scratched his chin as we walked. “Well, they are excessive, so that’s to be expected.”

I continued to moan about how much the village was going to cost me, and Ranic continued to tell me I was being ridiculous. I would point out a problem, and he would give a reason I was viewing it wrong. It was a game we played while I worked. It helped us both think things over. And it was pretty funny when Ranic was doing the moaning over having to manage his house of scholars.

We stopped before we reached the village, because neither of us wanted people to overhear us and think we were serious, or as unprofessional as we actually were. We had to keep up the façade that we were respectable members of the community, that we knew what we were doing.

Even though we were mostly winging it.

Without additional material to make expansions to the sewers, the royal builders could only perform detail work on the two-thirds they had already built, leaving Blackwood surrounded by a large, empty moat. The network of half-finished tunnels you could see from the edge looked like a granite spaghetti sea. Not an unpleasant sight, but not a charming one, either.

Jeric’s negotiation with the quarry owners had concluded after I left for Melgrim. And one of the quarries had more than a decade’s worth of backlog stock to sell, which was more than enough granite to get us working above ground-level. The first shipments from it were due to arrive sometime this week.

We crossed the land bridge to the east gate, moving through a crowd of workers, and made our way into the village. The east gate was still the only one the village had, and it was making everyone grumpy.

I spotted Quilly just inside the gate and waved. She still wasn’t talking to me, but I figured that was her problem. It didn’t cost me anything to be polite.

To my astonishment, she waved back.

Then she changed direction and came over. She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “I’ve been behaving like an ass, Arnold. I helped you bag the giant and thought I was a fucking prodigy. Then those assholes showed up and started making better designs. I threw a tantrum. And until the burtag showed up, I lost sight of what we were doing here. It’s not about me and my fucking ego, it’s about keeping people alive. It won’t happen again.”

“Was that an apology?” I asked, unsure. It kind of sounded like one.

“Yes, and there was nothing wrong with it.”

Ranic coughed. “Apologies normally have the words ‘I apologise’ or ‘I’m sorry’ in them.”

“I said it.”

We both shook our heads.

“I’m not going to repeat it just because you assholes weren’t listening,” she said indignantly.

Quilly turned on her heel and strode off in a huff.

“I’m not losing my marbles again, am I?” Ranic asked, sounding worried. “She didn’t actually apologise, did she?”

“You aren’t. I didn’t hear it either. But I think that’s the best I’m going to get from her.”

Ranic nodded, happy he wasn’t losing it. “What should we have for lunch, then?”

* * *

Durg’un sat on Sarion’s back, in the middle of a field, shaking his head. “So, you heard there was a barrel of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout in the village inn available for purchase and just decided to run over and purchase a taste, before the other dwarves heard about it.”

“I swear, Durg’un. I must try it once in my life. It doesn’t matter the price.”

I frowned at Sarion’s statement.

Maybe putting the ale up for sale had been a mistake, but Durg’un was the only person I’d met who could both afford to pay for it and was interested in buying it, even when I put the price up to max.

Durg’un sighed, stood up, and then lifted the dwarf to his feet and dusted him off. “I’m going to let you off with a warning, and I’ll even do you a favour. The human settlement is closed to dwarves, but I’ll see if I can have the barrel brought to our camp tomorrow evening. You and anyone who is interested can pay the three crown price to purchase a tankard, so you don’t miss out.”

Sarion turned pale. “Three crowns a tankard?”

“Tis the price I pay, so far from home, but you’re like myself in that you’re willing to pay any price.”

Sarion started looking around. “Ah, that is a bit much. I thought it would be less.”

I could see what Durg’un was doing, so I decided to join in. I gave the little sociopath a smile that I’m sure anyone could tell wasn’t friendly. “The barrel belongs to me, and I’d be willing to allow you your first tankard at the base price of a crown. It is an experience I wouldn’t have a true enthusiast miss.”

Sarion didn’t like my offer.

Durg’un clapped him on the shoulder. “You should thank Landlord Arnold for his generosity.”

That seemed to do it.

A deep scowl transformed the dwarf’s face. “You pathetic excuse for a sentient,” he spat. “I will drink that ale over your worthless, warm corpse, toasting my success as I consume your experience!”

Durg’un’s axe blurred, and Sarion’s remaining hand fell away, slapping against the ground with a meaty thump.

Sarion dove for me, only to receive Durg’un’s fist to the side of his face. The amount of force Durg’un used would have cut through a tree. So Sarion didn’t crumple. He went flying, landing several yards away.

Durg’un flicked his axe, cleaning it. “Selling the first tankard for base is generous of you, but you won’t win a reprieve from the likes of him and his ilk.”

I’d just said it to piss Sarion off, but the fact Durg’un wasn’t taking it that way didn’t annoy me. I needed money, and if these assholes were willing to pay that much for a drink, I’d supply them. Besides, Durg’un took the whole honesty thing seriously, and though I didn’t like him, I didn’t want to upset him too much.

“No one in the village appreciates it enough to pay the price,” I said, picking up Sarion’s hand to dispose of it.

Durg’un nodded.

* * *

Durg’un and I sat on my hill watching the dwarf camp. It would take them another month to finish clearing the underground chambers. Once they did, the flow of granite to the surface would end, making everything significantly safer. There wouldn’t be the constant opportunity for the dwarves to try and make a run for it. So we’d only have to worry about the worst offenders.

Durg’un turned and looked out across The Wild Woods. His eyes began to glow. “You’ve got a problem. There’s a full-grown burtag heading for your third southern barn and a weaker one headed for the northernmost one.”

“Which one will arrive first?”

“The big one.”

I took off running.

We’d dealt with eight burtag in the past week, more than one a night. Even with the trapsmiths’ improvements to the barns, we were only a little safer. Durg’un wasn’t willing to assist, but he did give me permission to call for aid. So I sent out a request for help.

The adventurer guilds refused to come for any price, explaining that they didn’t deal with problems that arose from pets or livestock, unless I was willing to let them kill said pet or livestock. Instead of trying to make them reconsider, I sent a private message to Torvac. He was the only high-level adventurer I knew, but he was out clearing a dungeon with other high-level adventurers and wouldn’t be back for a few more days. Finally, I’d sent a message to Jeremby, asking him if he and the others were interested in working off their debt. They were. And they were on their way.

I didn’t bother asking the regent. She’d made her position clear, and Isabelle and Jeric managed to convince me not to contact the king. So, I was all by myself when I raced into the barn.

I wove my way through the hazards to the control box and yanked open the door. I scanned the two women’s faces. One was watching through the viewing window, and the other was putting down her book, exactly as they should be. “Balara, Willona you’ve got a fully grown burtag headed for your barn. There is another one headed for the northern barns, but we’ll deal with this one first.”

“We’re ready, sir,” Balara said, scrunching her freckled cheeks with a feral grin.

My new deal for experience share was vastly different from the one I’d offered Lenlin and the others. That had been a straight 25% of experience generated from their barn. Now, I was offering 5% of the total experience acquired in a night, split among all those on duty. With all my experience buffs, the amount of farmer experience a burtag produced was in the millions. The thirty people on duty would all go up 5 or more levels, like the others had.

We were going to fine-tune the deal when people eventually left Blackwood for other villages and towns, since they wouldn’t have my experience buffs. But for now, those who had excelled enough to pass early got special treatment and a chance to power-level.

I opened my mouth to tell them what to do, but then closed it again. They’d been receiving instructions for months from qualified people. They were ready. I shouldn’t try to micromanage…But I couldn’t help myself. However, I did tone it down.

“Do you know what to do?”

“Yes, sir,” they said together, and then handed me over a pair of spears.

I nodded one last time and turned and ran out of the barn. Salem was waiting for me at the entrance and fell in beside me as we raced across the open fields. “This one is much bigger than the others.”

“I know. I need you to go to barn 8 and tell the team there that they’ve got a burtag coming their way. I’ll deal with this one.”

Salem shot off in the other barn’s direction, blurring with his speed. One of these days, I’d have to find out exactly how much agility he had. Actually, it would be nice to know how much of everything he had.

I made my way to the nearest barn and waited. Then the ground began to shake. You know that scene in Jurassic Park where the water in the glass ripples? That was happening to the trees. The branches trembled with every step. The next thing I heard was trees cracking and crashing. The sound grew louder and louder until finally it came into view.

I backed up a step.

I’d dealt with my share of burtags over the past week, but this one was the first to give me the impression it was a boss monster. The bottom of its thorax was more than fifteen feet off the ground, and it was wider than it was tall. It probably weighed more than any four we’d faced so far, and didn’t just look like the fire-breathing beetles from Starship Troopers. It was nearly as big as one too.

I backed up another step.

One barn wasn’t going to be enough.

The second back-step turned into another and then another, until I’d backpedalled another fifty yards. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this creature. Burtags could have all sorts of dangerous abilities when they reached full growth.

The moment it was fully on the property, I shot forward, using a running start to give my throw extra distance. I didn’t aim for its mouth this time. Its compound eyes were too large and inviting a target. I threw my spear, watching it sail through the air, before connecting with the big, soft orb.

The burtag shrieked as its eyeball ruptured, letting out a deafening sound that visibly rushed towards me in a cone, illuminating the world with static.

I had just enough time to think, fuck, before the wave hit me. Pain stabbed my ears, and the world spun so hard I dropped to my knees.

You have taken 385 sonic damage.

You are mildly disorientated.

That was new.

I searched my memory for answers as my vision swam.

Monsters’ abilities weren’t fixed. There were a few they could get at each threshold, and it made them all slightly different. The burtag had hit me with a deafening shriek. They typically used it against large numbers of weaker monsters when they wanted to feed on them without chasing them down, or as a defence mechanism when startled and injured.

It could both stun and disorient its victim, depending on their constitution.

I blinked to clear my vision as my ears rang with a loud, high-pitched sound. A moment later, I remembered where I was, and I forced myself to my feet. I couldn’t wait another second to recover. It was too close. I took a few steps and tripped, falling over, unable to balance.

You have taken 1 fall damage.

I immediately pulled myself up again, fumbling for the remaining spear to use as a walking stick. I started shuffling forwards. One step, two steps, I quickly found a rhythm, heavily leaning on the spear for each new step. The ground shook as the burtag followed me.

With each step I got a little faster until I broke into a jog. I entered the gigantic trap barn only a few seconds ahead of the burtag, stumbling around due to the shaking ground and disorientation. I navigated my way through the red-highlighted hazards as I tried to make my way to the control room. I only realised I was completely deaf when a chunk of wood flew past me, skittering across the ground, and I heard nothing.

The wayward wood activated a log swing, and I dove to the side, shuffling forward as it passed me. I didn’t stop to look behind me until I reached the open door of the control room and found Balara still at her station.

I grabbed her by her shoulder and tugged, pulling her back. “Run!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She leapt onto the ladder and began climbing.

I moved into her place and looked out the viewing window. The front half of the barn was missing.

The burtag had reared backwards, slamming its thorax into the ceiling, tearing the roof off the barn. Ropes and other pieces of the internal workings had wrapped themselves around its body as it rolled away from the barn to regain its feet. There were a few signs it had been hit by weighted swinging axes and spears, but the weapons seemed to have startled it rather than injured it.

It picked itself back up and charged.

I stared at the behemoth, pulling levers as it came forward. Swinging axes and log spears dropped from the ceiling, launching towards it, only to bounce off its carapace. This creature was insanely huge. I’d thought the manual barns were overkill, but once again, I’d been proven wrong. They needed to be bigger. Maybe not all of them, but some of them should be.

It only took me a couple of seconds to realise the traps were having very little effect, and that the combined damage wouldn’t be enough. The most effective weapon was a swinging axe, which I timed perfectly to hit it in its knee joint as it was taking a step, but even that didn’t take out its leg.

When it reached the three-quarters mark, I pulled the new, red lever and watched as an eight-foot-wide log with nine spearheads detached from the ceiling, headed right for its head and shoulders. It was the length of a small bus and too big to hide. We’d hastily reinforced the ceilings to hold its weight.

The burtag dropped its chitinous head, taking the spears along its carapace. The log knocked it back a step, but that was all.

I was all out of traps and ideas.

Hopefully Salem could think of something…?

I turned and tossed my spear above me, and then climbed the ladder, picked up the spear, and ran for the hayloft door, leaping out. This time I landed in a precise roll. I’d been practicing after my last failure.

You have taken 2 fall damage.

I rolled to my feet and shouted, “Parkour!” quoting my dad’s favourite wizard detective. Then I fell over, proving I was nowhere near as cool.

I climbed to my feet, clutching the spear for support, and stumbled away from the barn. After a hundred yards, I turned and stared. The burtag was in the process of knocking down the back wall. As the wall crashed, the burtag began to stomp on the wreckage, making some sort of nest.

A black streak blurred past me and slammed into the burtag’s neck. You know the scenes in anime where the main character and the villain blur, because their fight involves them moving so fast that none of the side characters can see what they are doing?

Being the side character is a humbling experience.

Wounds appeared all over the burtag as what I was assuming was Durg’un, ripped into it.

It wasn’t even a fight.

Durg’un butchered it.

In less than three seconds, the legs were gone, and the head fell away, cut clean off. Then Durg’un passed me in a second blur, heading towards the northern hamlet.

I stared at the dead burtag.

So that was the power of a dwarf chief.

I had thought the regent and the high-level adventurers at the cull were badass. That thought hadn’t really changed, but there was now a category above badass. Durg’un.

Something struck my ankle. I looked down to see Salem moving his mouth.

“I can’t hear you. I’m deaf,” I said.

Salem rolled his eyes and placed his paw against my leg. His voice filled my mind, something I did not know he could do. “You still need to deal with the other one.”

STEP 35

LET PEOPLE HELP YOU

“Friend Arnold, Torvac has arrived to lend you his strength,” Torvac said, dropping the handles of the rickshaw he’d sprinted into the village square pulling. He turned and enthusiastically pointed behind him. “Look, Torvac has brought Torvac’s friend Misk to visit.”

Paler than usual, Misk stepped off the overloaded rickshaw, hugging his thick robes around him despite the day’s heat. Misk gave a ghastly smile and waved a skeletal hand, causing several children who had stopped to stare to flee in fright.

He shuffled over to me, leaning against his staff for support. “Torvac mentioned he was coming to visit your village, so I asked to join him.” He coughed into the arm of his robe. “I hope you don’t mind, but my research has once again stalled after your revelations, and I hoped to continue our conversation.”

I had to force myself to focus, to hear him over the ringing in my ears. Fitz had barely been able to communicate that they were coming down the road and get me out of Gretel’s inn before they arrived.

Torvac’s grin widened, and he clapped the smaller man on the shoulder, knocking him forward a step. “Friend Misk did much begging, grovelling, and pleading to be allowed to come. Misk is lich defender of southern region. Misk is rarely allowed to leave. Misk is very important man.”

Misk rolled his eyes, righting his stumble from Torvac’s overly enthusiastic pat. “I understand you need us to take an oath of secrecy.”

“Torvac needs no oath. Torvac will not share information out of spite. Torvac is man of honour.”

Misk chuckled, wheezing out each breath. “That’s what you said when you promised your wife you wouldn’t share her recipe for braised lamb and look what happened.”

The huge adventurer managed to look scandalized. “Torvac did not share secret recipe out of spite. Torvac was drunk, hungry, and missing Orlana. Is big difference.”

Misk nodded, as if he had heard this many times. Then he grinned at me. “I suggest you make him take the oath twice, just to be safe.”

Torvac laughed.

Misk chuckled with him, but started to look at me with concern. “Are you okay? You’re normally more talkative than this.”

“I was hit by a burtag’s deafening shriek three days ago,” I said, much too loudly. “I’ve only just got my hearing back. It’s hard to follow conversations over the ringing.”

Misk looked impressed and confused. “What were you doing anywhere near a burtag?”

“Torvac is unimpressed until Friend Arnold has survived Torvac’s wife’s shrieking to eat more salads. That is true test of manhood.”

Misk laughed, but nodded his agreement. “Anyway, where is the oath binder? I’d like to get this over with.”

An hour later, we were sitting in Emily’s parlour drinking Jeric’s brandy. I finished explaining what was going on and took a sip, enjoying the delicate flavour.

“Okay, Torvac is impressed now. Torvac did not know farmer class could acquire trapsmith skill.” He scratched his cheek as he refilled his glass from the crystal decanter.

“No one knew,” Misk said, waving away Torvac’s offer for more brandy. “Arnold is the first person to ever do so.”

“I’m at least the second,” I clarified. “I didn’t receive a first achievement or an exploit.”

“Semantics,” Misk said. “The key detail here is there is another skill and class that can be affected by our great boon, and we can’t gain the benefit because we didn’t obtain it while we were farmers.”

Torvac chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Friend Misk wants to level another class. This is soooo…surprising.”

The two started to bicker.

I let it go on, thinking it would quickly peter-out, but I’d overlooked that they were drinking.

I eventually cleared my throat. “Torvac, do you have any problems with our arrangement now that you know the details?” I asked.

Torvac stopped arguing and his cheerful smile fell away. “A crown a day while Torvac does nothing and ten when Torvac has to fight is not good deal anymore. Burtag is not small threat when Torvac alone. You must pay double offer.”

It was at least another two months before the dwarves finished, so his pay was going to be anywhere between 120 and 1200 crowns. I could afford it. The experience the barns would make in that time was worth a lot more when sold to Rina. Jeremby and his party were paying off their debt. If they could take care of the threat, I’d let them. It would save me a lot of money, but it was good to have a backup plan.

“Deal,” I said.

* * *

I shook my head at the trapped dwarf. “You know, most people would have learned by now, Sarion.”

The dwarf spat in my direction, despite being pressed to the ground.

I dodged to the side.

He continued to glare at me. “Let’s get this over with,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ve got work in the morning, and I need to get some sleep.”

Durg’un brought his axe down on Sarion’s elbow and then slammed the flat of the blade on the back of Sarion’s head, knocking him out. But instead of picking him up by the collar like he usually did, he stood there staring down at Sarion.

When half a minute went by, I grew concerned. “Are you okay?”

Durg’un didn’t like what he had to do to his fellow dwarves. It ate at his conscience. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a meltdown at some point.

“They are growing more callous,” he whispered. “I’m not saving your people. I’m creating monsters that will hunt them in the night. This scheme of King Grorion’s was a mistake. We’re heading for war if this continues.”

His words chilled me. I’d scared the regent when I said the exact same thing, but I hadn’t known why at the time. I did now. Radian existed because the dwarf kings allowed it to. There was no chance we would win if it came to war. They were too strong.

Thankfully, they didn’t need the surface world.

“What’s done is done,” I said, wearily. “We can’t undo this, only move forward and deal with the consequences when they come.”

I didn’t tell Durg’un I had a plan for those consequences. I already knew Sarion and the others wouldn’t stop. I’d seen the writing on the wall weeks ago. The vicious, fanatical fever that compelled them grew stronger every time he hurt them. This wasn’t about experience anymore. This was about getting revenge for all the pain and suffering they’d received at our hands.

But Durg’un was too sentimental to see that until they left him no choice.

He gave a tired sigh, turned around, and then sat on the other dwarf, pinning him so he didn’t need to watch him. “You hate me less than you used to?”

“I’ve never hated you.”

The breeze played with the long grass, making it dance to nature’s beat. We were a short walk from the northern hamlet’s outer fields. This was the closest any of the dwarves had gotten.

Durg’un eyed his axe, searching for dirt or damage. “You dislike me less then.”

“You protected our village when you didn’t have to. I am grateful for that.”

“I had planned to make you an offer when I met you, that would be to our mutual benefit. I haven’t spoken of it before now because of your disposition towards me.”

“If you wanted me to be happy with you, then you shouldn’t have been a dick.”

Durg’un snorted, used to my bluntness. “Few dare speak to me the way you do.”

“Well, you probably don’t headbutt that many people.”

Durg’un chuckled. “More than you would think. And if you speak this way in front of the adventurer or lich, I will cuff you for your insolence.”

“I’m not that dumb. I know you’ve got a reputation to protect.”

“Good, because I don’t want your dislike for me to grow.”

“Because you’ve got a mutually beneficial offer for me.”

“Yes. I have in my possession a legendary-grade experience potion. It gives a 1000% increase to experience for a week. I received it as a gift half a century ago; and in all that time, I have never seen an opportunity that would validate its use. If you drink it before you kill the giant, I will let you keep 10% of the experience it generates.”

Damn! I mean shit! That was a lot of experience.

“I want half,” I said.

My quest only promised half of the experience I generated, meaning me and all my personal buffs. This potion was outside that agreement. I knew that because the fine print of my quest was twelve pages long and accounted for all sorts of different scenarios, including if a quest-taker’s method killed me.

Durg’un actually growled at my counter-offer. It was a menacing sound, like someone chambering a round into a shotgun. If I didn’t have my fearless mark and charisma as high as I did, I would have peed a little.

“You don’t know how rare this potion is.”

“And yet you somehow think caged giants happen every day. You’re welcome to take your potion to some other farmer with one and let them use it for you.”

Durg’un paused and then gave the slightest of nods, accepting my point. “I was hoping your disposition to me had improved over the past few weeks.”

“It has. Before I would have said no; now, I’m willing to work with you.”

Durg’un grunted and stood, picking Sarion up by his collar. I was impressed by how robust dwarven clothing was. They might be short, but they were much stockier and wider than humans. Durg’un started walking back towards the dwarf camp.

“What do you need human farmer experience for, anyway? You can’t use it.”

“I can sell human experience to the system at half its base value, the way human merchants can sell ours,” he said, without turning around.

Damn, that was a lot of gold. And the asshole was in debt. It was a simple but brilliant plan.

Durg’un liked honesty, so I decided to be honest just to screw with him. I waited until he was further away and then activated Lowheart’s Lungs. “I would have accepted your deal in a second if you hadn’t been a dick that day.”

The way his shoulders tensed was oddly satisfying.

I picked up Sarion’s discarded limb and headed back to Arnold’s Hill. The night wasn’t over, and there were still dangers coming out of the forest I needed to watch for.

* * *

Well done, you have successfully timed your hoe strikes to your interface for an entire field and gained a new rank in your tool proficiency. You can now boast that you can use a hoe as well as any Journeyman.

I grinned as the wave of light hit me. I’d finally done it. I’d used the interface to turn over a whole field without mistakes. It was a common-enough skill among experienced farmers, but it was a significant achievement for me.

“Now, just do that ten times in a row and you will be an adept,” Ranic said, happily from his pool chair.

That goal didn’t feel impossible anymore. I could see the end in the distance, and that left me excited. A glorious life without farming awaited me. And each day it grew a little closer.

Ranic pointed to the wooden pool chair beside him. “Take a break, and let your body adapt to the changes.”

I walked over to the wheelbarrow and put Ranic’s hoe with the other tools. Then I took a seat next to him, stretching out my leg to relax. Lounging was a pleasant experience in any world. “Did you hear about the goblin attack?”

Ranic nodded, losing his cheerful demeanour. “Two villages massacred at once is an unprecedented occurrence; but two villages and a town, at the same time, shows us something is fundamentally wrong in Radian.”

“I thought goblins and hobgoblins have always been a threat?”

“Not to this level. They’re behaving like orcs instead of like monsters.”

“Pavatin wants to add a second wall around the outer district. It’s not high on the priority list, so it won’t be ready for a year, but I’m tempted to let him build it, despite the cost.”

“Are you asking for my advice?”

“When am I not?”

Ranic chuckled. “Most of your farmers won’t benefit from this wall unless they know a threat is coming and have time to retreat to safety. However, if they do, until Blackwood becomes a town, the inner district won’t be large enough to house everyone, even if people hide in the sewers. Blackwood already has a much larger population than a level 3 village should, and it’s about to grow three-fold, once the giant is dead and we contact the nobles in the south.”

“So, we need it.”

“Only if there is a threat to the village, and the likeliness of that occurring before the village becomes a town is low. A village-destroying event along the border is meant to be a once-in-a-century occurrence, which means it happens several times a year in Radian, but it is still a rare occurrence.”

“So, we don’t need it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“I’m saying the risk is low, but not zero, and that when it comes to taking responsibility for others’ lives, you should make a decision that lets you sleep peacefully at night, now and when you are old and plagued by memories of regret after a very long life.”

“That’s a different way of looking at it, I suppose. So, I’m building a wall.”

“You make it sound like you had a second option.”

“I was misinformed that I did.”

Ranic patted my shoulder. “An easy mistake to make.”

* * *

I was sitting in front of Gretel’s inn, drinking ale at one of the new outdoor picnic tables, watching people make their way home after their day’s labour. The sun was setting, providing a perfectly picturesque scene. People nodded to me as they went inside for a meal or stopped to chat as they walked past.

It was nice.

As my wait lengthened, I ordered another ale.

The sunlight was almost gone when Jeremby and his party rode into the village square. I put down my fifth drink and stood to meet my guests, waving to get their attention. A carriage appeared a moment later, stopping behind them.

Ames spotted me and waved back, directing the group. They rode over and climbed off their horses, leading them around the side of the inn to throw their reins over the hitching post that was barely ever used. The carriage slowly circled the village square before parking in front of the inn.

Jeremby came back around the front a moment later. The handsome, young adventurer was physically fit and easy-going. He wasn’t dressed for combat, wearing simple trousers and a shirt, so there was little to show you how dangerous the man actually was. “Arnold, it’s good to see you! Thank you for this opportunity.”

We shook hands. “You said to call you if I ever needed help, and I need help.”

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder, but instead of pulling his hand away, he grabbed my shoulder and turned me to see me more clearly, looking me over. He whistled appreciatively. “You have more constitution and stamina than I do.”

I grinned. “I’ve been busy.”

“And I see your charisma is now over 100. You wouldn’t be trying to steal my wife, would you?”

We both laughed.

Ilia was a bit of a flirt, but she only had eyes for Jeremby. We both knew that. But I’d mentioned to her the first day we met that I didn’t have nearly enough charisma to tempt her away, and she’d told her husband. He’d thought that was hilarious and had been joking about it ever since.

Jeremby clapped me on the shoulder again, to show how happy he was to see me, and then let me go. “She’s here, by the way.”

“She is?” I asked, excitedly.

Now that I couldn’t be charmed, all the uncomfortable feelings her presence brought out of me were gone.

He nodded. “The woman can’t get enough of me.”

The carriage driver finished getting the stairs in place and opened the door. Ilia stepped onto the first step, smirking at her husband. “Is that so?”

Ilia was one of the few obese people in the kingdom, because of several unique bard abilities that required her to eat excessive amounts. However, her charisma was so high that it made her weight work for her, so she was still stunningly beautiful. She glided down the stairs, in a fine, blue dress, and embraced me in a rib-cracking hug.

“He started begging me to come the moment he received your letter,” she whispered.

I chuckled as I returned the hug.

I stepped away, still smiling at Ilia. “Did he tell you about the oath you need to take to learn what’s going on here?”

She nodded. “I’m happy to take it with them.”

Ames, Obre, Devra, and Silbi came around the corner, and we made polite small talk, having only ever met briefly. They looked a little tougher than the last time I met them, but they still hadn’t caught up to Jeremby.

Fitz exited the inn, holding his clipboard out, ready to organise anything that needed to be done. He didn’t look up until he almost reached us. He froze as his gaze landed on Ilia and then looked at me and gulped.

He stepped over and whispered in my ear. “You should have told me she was coming. You can’t host her here.”

I’d bribed several scholars to vacate their rooms at the inn for Jeremby and his party, so I wouldn’t need to go looking for them if we had to talk. And it was the nicest place in Blackwood. The Weird Farmer might have been busier, but that was the only good thing I could say about it.

“We aren’t,” I said, unconcerned. “She came of her own accord. So, she’s welcome to find better lodgings.”

Fitz searched his brain, trying to find where that might be, and came up empty. The majority of my workforce was living in tents, and he knew not to ask Isabelle to host anyone. He heaved a sigh and then hustled everyone through the inn and showed them to their rooms, apologising a dozen times to Ilia for the quality of her lodgings. She said she didn’t mind, but Fitz clearly didn’t believe her.

He gave everyone a few minutes to freshen up and then took them to take their oath.

An hour later, I met them in Emily’s parlour and explained why they had been asked to take the oath.

Ilia listened with interest. “That’s a feat worthy of a song.”

Ames chuckled. “It would be a pretty funny song.”

Jeremby crossed his arms. “Arnold, I’d like to help you, but a burtag is beyond what our party can tackle. Even if we had a wizard, I wouldn’t risk it.”

I nodded. “I understand that. There is a high-level adventurer here, named Torvac. He’ll be dealing with the worst problems. You’re there for small-but-cunning targets my operators can’t deal with.”

Jeremby frowned. “Torvac, Torvac, why do I know that name?”

Ilia looked over. “His wife owns Orlana’s in the capital. I’ve sung there several times.”

Jeremby smiled, like a man remembering a pleasant memory. “Oh, that Torvac.” He suddenly became very excited. “Is his wife here? I would work for free if I could eat nothing but her braised lamb while doing so.”

“And that is why you are not in charge of our finances, dear.”

“She’s not,” I said, more than a little intrigued by Torvac’s wife’s cooking now.

“That’s a pity.”

“Do you have any objections to the job?”

Jeremby frowned. “I would prefer to try to chase these monsters off than kill them.”

“That’s a problem for me, because if they can bypass my trap system, then my people are at risk. And I would prefer they not be in danger. So, if you can’t safely kill something, you need to call in Torvac.”

Ames shrugged. “How much are we getting paid?”

“I’ll pay you standard guild bounty rates each time you’re called on.”

Ames whistled. “Deal.”

Jeremby scowled at him.

Ames nodded to Jeremby, understanding he’d overstepped his bounds, and then turned to me and grinned. “Deal,” Ames repeated.

* * *

My fingers danced across my guitar strings, the cool night air ruffling my hair as it came up from hitting the hill. The soft fluttering of the cloth above me was a peaceful sound to play to. With hours to practice each night, I’d made significant improvements and was a much better guitar player than I had ever been. Durg’un sat to the side, slowly drinking his way through the barrel of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout I’d given him as Misk asked questions.

Durg’un and Misk knew each other. And both had been surprised to see the other here. Durg’un had actually questioned me on his appearance, because when he agreed to let me call in aid, he never thought I’d call in someone capable of killing him.

Apparently, Torvac wasn’t joking when he said Misk was a very important man.

Durg’un and Misk had words, far away from the village, and came to some sort of agreement. Whatever they had said must have suited both of them, because they had no problem being around each other.

“So, viruses are dead,” Misk said, taking notes and wheezing slightly. “Yet they replicate through the destruction of the living. This would explain why identification spells cannot detect some sicknesses and yet have no issue detecting others, which I now believe is this bacteria organism you speak of.”

“Possibly, but I honestly don’t know. Everything I’m telling you comes from high school science and half- watched YouTube videos. This wasn’t my area of interest.”

“Yet, it is more than I know, and I’m at the forefront of my field of study. Which brings up another question: How did your people make such impressive discoveries without magic? Was it because of electronics?”

“DNA study required it, and maybe the finer points of bacteria and virus study did too, but microscopes work without magic.”

Misk covered his mouth with his robe as a violent coughing fit overcame him, shaking his entire body. It went on for nearly a minute before he regained control. I was getting used to his condition. The more he talked, the worse he seemed to be, so I tried to keep his side of the conversation to a minimum.

Misk didn’t. “What’s a microscope?”

“It’s like a magnifying glass, but hundreds of times stronger. It allows you to view the world that exists in the space of a single hair. It is a realm your eyes can’t see.”

I was getting pretty good at explaining Earth concepts in a way people from here could understand. With all my research and development teams’ questions, I’d had a lot of practice.

“You can make this microscope?”

“Not with my current skill set. But I theoretically know how one works, because there was a drawing in a science textbook, but I haven’t built it yet.”

“You must try. This device might be the answer to my questions.”

“Way ahead of you, Misk. I’ve outsourced what I know to professionals. Hopefully they’ll figure out the specifics of building one.”

“You are going to transform our world,” Durg’un said, looking out across Blackwood.

“That’s the plan,” I said. “There’s not much I can do myself, but I know enough to point skilled people in the right direction. It should save a few centuries of trial and error.”

* * *

A beam of monstrous light filled the sky the following afternoon as I brought my hoe down. It was coming from the direction of the giant. I lifted my hoe and timed my next strike perfectly, even with a distraction.

“It’s finished, then,” Ranic said, turning to look at the light. “Your giant has formed its core.”

I brought the hoe down again. “Looks like it. It’s going to be a pain not having something I can feed all that extra experience to.”

A sensation like soundless thunder passed through my chest. It didn’t mess up my timing, which showed how much I’d improved.

“Did you feel that?” Ranic asked.

“Was that you?”

“No. I don’t know what it was.”

A horn began to blow from the direction of the dwarven camp and didn’t stop. The fact that the camp was four miles away showed how strong dwarven lungs were.

“What are they up to now?” Ranic asked. “Was that one of your signals? Do I have to worry about a rogue dwarf?”

“It’s not a signal Durg’un has shared with me. Maybe one of their tunnels collapsed, or it indicates their forge is finished.”

“Who knows with dwarves?”

Something crashed into the field beside me, falling from the sky and kicking up a spray of dirt. My hoe came around in an arc and was slapped from my hands effortlessly.

Durg’un scowled at me. “Call your men at arms. Pull your non-combatants within your walls. You’ve brought war upon your village.”

I turned to Ranic, dropping the hoe. “Run and sound the alarm. I want the operators armed and armoured. Have them assembled at the eastern gate.” Ranic took off at a sprint, his strength letting him take super-humanly long strides. I turned back. “What’s going on, Durg’un?”

“My warriors are mobilizing. Your village-eater has gained a rare, final ability called ‘Gluttonous Feast’. It is a charm ability that captivates all weak-minded monsters over a vast area, compelling them to come to the village-eater with all haste. I have not seen it since my youth, when the young orc hordes began to reach our mountains. We thought it an ability they gained from eating large numbers of sentients. Apparently, we were wrong.”

“What should we expect?”

“Every weak-minded monster and beast from here to a dozen times over the horizon is making their way to your village at this moment. If that was all there was to it, I wouldn’t bother to rouse my people, but the village-eater can now trade any new experience it gains from eating monsters for extra growth. Left unchecked, its growth is limitless. The titans of old stood five times the height of the one in your pit, and we only killed them by luring the ancient dragons to feed on them. Prepare your people. The tide is coming.”

STEP 36

SOME PROBLEMS YOU CAN’T PLAN FOR

Once the call went up, people started running. One good perk of my trap method was we already had an emergency system in place for when everything went crazy. This was basically a fire drill for us. Torvac, Misk, and Jeremby’s party were the last to arrive at Emily’s manor. Those in charge of the militia chuckled as they showed up late, calling them unprofessional. There were more officers further afield, but they wouldn’t get here in time.

Fitz had already explained we didn’t have time to wait, and then he stood behind me with a clipboard, ready to take notes and pass along orders and information.

Crowds of people rushed around us, making other preparations. The guard barracks were handing out bows and crossbows. Others were starting to cook, as feeding everyone in such a small space would be a constant process.

Fitz tapped me on the shoulder as Ames arrived.

I activated Lowheart’s Lungs. “Listen up, because I don’t have time to repeat myself. There’s a horde of monsters and beasts on their way towards the giant as I speak, which we need to stop from reaching it. The dwarves are going to hold the north-facing sides of the border, Durg’un is holding the east, Torvac is holding the west while protecting the village from the dwarves, and the rest of us are holding the south-facing sides.”

Lenlin held up his hand. He had done exceptionally well under Adoya’s tutelage and was still in charge of the operators running the barns in Blackwood. “What type of monsters?”

“All types. Now, I can only field 208 of the militia as part of my farm to gain experience on the front line. Sergeant Gurlad, I want 160 of your best crossbowmen set up with reloading teams.”

Sergeant Gurlad scratched his chin, jostling his chainmail. “I don’t have enough people through their first and second thresholds to field that many. We need 64 through their first, and we’ve only got a handful. And that’s not even counting the second threshold problem.”

“There are 18 people who qualify for their second threshold among the operators, and the rest of your people have qualified for their first,” Fitz said. “I can name the first group for you if you need.”

“Send a runner with the names,” I said. “Jeric’s bringing experience as we speak. We’ll have everyone to the levels we need by the time the monsters arrive.”

Everybody appeared to be shocked by the amount of experience I was willing to throw at this threat, but if the giant got big enough to escape, even Durg’un wouldn’t be able to stop it. My concern for the situation worried several people, and whispered conversations broke out.

I ignored them, focusing on Sergeant Gurlad. “We don’t have the fighting capacity of the dwarves, so our defensive line will be just outside the giant’s danger zone. Sergeant Gurlad, you’re in command of the operators not working in the barns. But I want your crossbowmen hitting soft targets. The serious threats are to be left to Misk and Jeremby’s party. Any questions?”

“Where will the other 58 be, who aren’t in the firing teams?” Sergeant Gurlad asked.

“The ones who are there to expand our numbers will be in the village. The rest will be with me and Lenlin. Lenlin, you’re in charge of the barns, so Salem and I will act as bait. We’re going to try to take as many mid-tier targets as we can, so expect to be busy, and do active resets.”

Lenlin winced. Active resets involved resetting spent traps while there were monsters inside. It was extremely dangerous work, because it required someone to go into the barn’s ceiling while traps were being activated. If you were unknowingly in the wrong place at the wrong time, you would fall.

“I’ll get the crew ready,” he said, before racing off.

“Any more questions? Because we need to start moving.”

“Dozens, but none that are relevant to do our jobs,” Sergeant Gurlad said, before turning to his men. “You heard the boss. We’ve got a horde of monsters heading our way and no time to prepare. Team leaders, assemble your people and find our marksmen, get them here to level and integrate into the farm.”

Two dozen voices cried, “Yes, sir!” and raced off.

Gurlad turned to me. “How many farming points do you have available? Crossbowmen need five major upgrades to fight effectively.”

“I can only give you three,” I said, already hearing Ranic chewing my ear off. “And a fourth if we kill enough monsters.”

Gurlad scowled. “Give me Dusk Until Dawn, Lightened Load, Dexterous Pruning, and Worker’s Song when the points become available.”

I didn’t question why Gurlad would need the ability to sing in time to fight. I probably would later, because that was weird. But right now, I didn’t have the time to be curious.

I opened the interface up and bought the first three upgrades he wanted. At least these upgrades made sense to me. Dusk Until Dawn halved the stamina cost of anything done on my farm. Lightened Load allowed people to carry twice as much. Dexterous Pruning made it easier to do fine motor movements quickly, like load a crossbow and fire it or prune a bush and pick fruit.

“Done.”

* * *

Four hours later, I was being chased by yet another ravenous troll. My cloak of monster taunting trailed behind me as I ran. It was the first time I’d ever used it, and it had more than lived up to its name. I’d have to stop to remember how many monsters I’d already baited, but the number was insanely high. The troll roared. The sound vibrated through my chest, failing to stun me, as it trampled across my farm and followed me into one of the automated barns.

A thick, copper odour filled the air as its foot landed in the trapdoor. Its weight exceeded what the locks would hold, causing the trapdoor to collapse beneath it, pivoting around the central point like a revolving door turned on its side.

The troll’s momentum made it impossible for the monster to stop in time, and it disappeared below. Its last, surprised shriek abruptly cut off a moment later. The trapdoor spun a few more times and then locked back into place, ready for the next monster.

I looked around, taking in the mess.

The barn had turned into a psycho’s funhouse. There were two dozen dead monsters and beasts cut to pieces or stuck to spike walls. Blood covered every surface, leaving the abattoir interior reeking of death and filth.

So far, the wave wasn’t as bad as the night we captured the giant, but only because the monsters didn’t come all at once. But with each passing hour, our situation became grimmer. The barns could only kill so many monsters before they no longer functioned. This one didn’t have much left to it, and I had no idea how long they would keep coming.

I skirted around the side of the trapdoor to the entrance and exited the building, looking for my next target. My feet quickly peeled away the distance as I searched. I sensed Salem running in the distance and turned to see a death mantis fifty feet behind him. The death mantis was the size of a minivan and looked like its smaller counterpart, except it had the ability to change its exterior to match its surroundings.

I swore, heart rate spiking.

A death mantis was a deep dweller, the sort of monster that couldn’t come near a village because of its protective aura. If even one was here, then the village’s aura had to be completely negated.

We were in trouble.

But I couldn’t do more than I was already doing. I was far more effective here than anywhere else.

A massive pack of wolves ran out of the forest about a mile away. They were heading for the reservoir. I ignored them, searching for a bigger target and spotted a komododile in the distance. I broke into a sprint.

* * *

It was after midnight when I threw Manson over my shoulder and started running away from his manual barn. The teenager squealed in pain as his broken legs bounced against my stomach. I didn’t slow and quickly caught up to Pel, crossing the distance with surprising speed considering Manson’s weight. The Lightened Load ability really was quite impressive.

“What the hell are those things?” Pel shrieked, pulling out the speed potion I’d given her. She started chugging.

“Giant war ants,” I said, searching the night for other threats. “They’re deep dwellers and don’t come near civilisation. I made a mistake back there.”

“Again! What did you do this time?”

“Well, I knew that killing one in the barn would attract the rest, but I didn’t realise they’d be able to climb walls. That wasn’t in the books. But then, they’re deep dwellers, so they don’t come near civilisation. We’re probably the first to know. We might get a footnote in the next edition of The Monsters Compendium.”

“Oh, great! Just what I always wanted.”

Manson groaned as he passed out.

* * *

Salem slid in beside me as I ran for one of the automated barns. The sun was rising in the east, showing a bright, orange glow. We’d been working all night. The ogre chasing me growled loudly as it spotted Salem, before going back to panting. I had already dragged it two miles in my quest to find an automated barn that was still functioning enough to kill it. Ogres, as a rule, were not good long-distance runners, so this one seemed like it wanted to drop from exhaustion. The only thing keeping it going was my cloak of monster taunting.

“Arnold, you need to fall back to the village.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Do you have any idea how much weight you have lost during the night? You need to eat and drink something. You’ll collapse soon.”

I held up my wine skin, containing an expensive vintage used to replace lost stamina. “I am drinking, and I can keep going. My stamina is still half-full. I’ve got another wine skin lying in a field to top it up when I have to.”

“Your body is lying to you. You’ve got so many buffs that you don’t feel the stress of what you’re doing to yourself. To make it worse, your attributes are so unbalanced that your heart will explode before you realise you’re in trouble. And let me be clear: You’re in trouble. You’ve run more than 800 miles without stopping. Even I have taken a break.”

Had I really run that far?

It didn’t feel like I had, but I had a lot more buffs on my farm than I did when I ran cross-country. So maybe I had. It didn’t matter, though. The monsters were still here, and I had people to protect. “I’ll get rid of this guy and then think about going to the village to take a break,” I lied. “It’s still too dark for the operators to see clearly, and I don’t want to let anything through until they can.”

Salem looked around and relented. “You have fifteen minutes to let the sun rise further. If you have not stopped after that, I will have Lenlin come out here to collect you.”

“That’s a death sentence.”

“And yet he will come if I ask, so don’t make me ask.”

* * *

I walked through Blackwood’s crowded streets, heading for the makeshift kitchen. The non-combatants were all working at a furious pace, cooking food, directing the flow of traffic, or boiling bandages. The less-seriously injured were being assessed and treated in the village square before being taken to one of the nearby houses. The serious cases were all at Yaceb’s.

I reached the combatant’s kitchen, and I fell in line, waiting my turn. The rough-looking operator in front of me gave me a tired nod, heavy bags hanging from his eyes. His name was Blan. I’d met him for a couple of seconds when I was introduced to everyone. He had a wife and two young kids.

“You don’t look well, sir.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just need something to eat, and I’ll get back out there. How are you holding up?”

“It’s a bit rougher than the annual horde.”

“You seem to be holding up well despite that.”

He shrugged. “Sergeant Gurlad is letting the wizard deal with anything we can’t handle, but we don’t have the numbers we need. Monsters are getting through to the giant because we lack the people to stop them.”

“What happened to the adventurers?”

“Injuries. The mayor and Redcliff stepped in to help, but they didn’t last long before their mana was spent. We get a bit of help from the dwarf chief when it gets exceptionally rough. He’s kept us from losing more people.”

“We’ve had deaths?”

“None, as far as I know; I was speaking of injuries. Like I said, we’re leaving the larger targets to others. But a herd of two hundred razor boar isn’t as soft a target as it seems. Those damn pigs can’t cut through mail, but they hit hard enough to crack bone, and their bite is worse.” He let out a tired chuckle. “My brother’s currently lying face-down with one of his ass cheeks the colour of a ripe blueberry.”

“Load up your plates, loves,” one of the operator’s wives yelled at us. “There is plenty more where this came from. Don’t be saving it for the next person.”

I took two plates, accepting the offer and loading them up with mashed potatoes and cheese before balancing a loaf of bread on top. I added a scoop of butter. Then I went and found an empty spot against the wall to lean against.

The moment I’d stopped running, the hunger had hit me. I was ravenous. It literally felt like I hadn’t eaten in a week. Without my charisma, I would have pushed my way to the front of the line and leapt face first into the mashed potatoes.

Salem was right.

I’d pushed my body too far. But I was still going back.

The first plate vanished in a couple of minutes, but by the time I was halfway through the second, my eyes were so heavy that I couldn’t focus. I fought with my exhaustion as I continued to eat. But the last few bites never made it to my mouth.

* * *

The smell of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout woke me from my stupor. The sun hung high overhead, baking my skin and telling me I’d been out for several hours. Durg’un sat beside me, leaning against the wall, wearing his obsidian-coloured plate armour, looking as tired as I felt. People were passed out on the ground all around us, snoring loudly. I felt terrible, even worse than when I was hung over from Ririon’s ale.

Durg’un handed me the second tankard as he took a drink from his own. He lowered his drink and turned his gaze to the sky. “I told my people the truth of the forge when the wave ended,” he said, wearily. “There is a great debate going on in the dwarven kingdoms as we speak. Master craftsmen all over are crying bitter tears, and others are advocating for the destruction of your village. To my surprise, I do not like the idea of this outcome. I’ve fought beside your people. I’ve protected them. And I have decided I like them. I wish to make you an offer, one that might spare this odd village’s destruction.”

My only response was a grunt; even that seemed like too much effort.

My buffed body had let me go far beyond my limits, and now I was paying for it. I was still ravenous, so ravenous that I lifted the tankard to my mouth and drained it, guzzling the insanely expensive liquid like water. The sour explosion didn’t overwhelm my taste buds this time. My body was so starved for calories that the sour taste became rich and full-bodied, sending a rush of energy through me.

I moaned with almost sexual intensity. It was like having a beer after a hot day’s work, except all of summer had been condensed into this one experience.

Durg’un laughed. “That is a proper reaction.”

The new rush of life gave me enough energy to give Durg’un some focus. “I’m listening.”

“I wish to buy the forge under your land and set up a small holding for those of my clan who can be trusted around your people, but I cannot afford to. The cost is more than what you will have to pay your royal builders to build your village. I see only one way I can afford it.”

“The potion,” I mumbled.

“The potion is part of it. The other part is what you bring. You’re hoarding monsters, fattening them up to cull, but even that is not enough. The tide will come once a week until the village-eater is dead; that is the length of the cooldown on its ability. I have listened to your people being educated, and I understand how your traps work. If you take the potion before the last tide and set the mithril razor wire pits yourself, that experience and the experience from all other sources will be worth the forge’s price.”

“The cooldown on that ability is only a week?” I was too exhausted and hungry to panic.

Durg’un nodded. “Yes, but we will be more prepared in the future. Now if you give me all this experience to buy the forge, I will give you a gift equal to it in return.”

“It doesn’t sound like you have to. You’ve got me in a position where I can’t refuse anymore.”

“That’s why it is a gift and not a trade. I’m not being frivolous with my words. You may keep the extra 10% experience I first offered for the giant and everything else.”

“It’s a good gift, I suppose.”

“That is not the gift. That is just fair business.”

I nodded. “What’s the gift then?”

“All trade from my forge to humans will be done exclusively through you. Our goods will be sold to you at base plus 10% for you to sell to others. This agreement will last all of your days, only changing when you are gone and your children take your place.”

Okay, that was a gift.

I immediately frowned. “That seems like a poor deal for you?”

Durg’un laughed, bitterly. “You know little of our lives, Landlord Arnold. The vast majority of our goods are sold to the system for half their base value. To sell to you above base and buy goods not shipped in from another kingdom or brought from the system will leave my people with wealth and abundance.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Under the mountains, our world is harsher than you know. We mine into deep places that mortals should not tread to supply an industry that barely keeps us fed. It has made us strong, but the cost is high.”

“Your people should trade more.”

“Our merchants never stop travelling. But even if all our people who did not suffer above land could be trusted with your people to become merchants, it would not be enough to keep us fed. Our kingdoms are as large as your own. There are a billion dwarves below the surface, and King Grorion is among the least of our rulers.”

That was a lot of people. “So, you’re giving some of your clan a better life, saving something your people value, getting out of debt, and giving a gift all at the same time. I may not like you, but I’ll be damned if I don’t respect you for this. I’ll accept your offer, but I’m still not sharing Ririon’s special reserve with you.”

Durg’un scowled.

STEP 37

WHEN AND WHEN NOT TO PUSH THROUGH THE PAIN

“You want the royal builders to build dozens of these barns around the giant’s threat zone,” Pavatin said a few hours later. “And you want them to do it in less than a week.” The royal architect scratched his head, looking around the only manual barn still standing.

There were corpses everywhere. The operators were in the process of dismembering the bodies, so they could dismantle the traps underneath and overhead to cart them off during reconstruction. We’d managed to capture a few more live monsters during the wave, but not enough to eat everything we’d killed. Without the giant, we now had an extreme overabundance of dead monsters.

A lot of experience was going to go to waste.

Pavatin sighed. “You realise the royal builders don’t build barns.”

I gave the head architect my most winning smile, prepared to bullshit my way through the conversation to get what I needed. “Does this look like a barn to you? This here is an amalgamation of architecture, trapsmith ingenuity, and farmer grit. It is the culmination of two worlds of ideas and technology. It is the pinnacle of monster death and mayhem.”

Pavatin nodded, complexion green. “I might be able to sell that to the builders if I phrase it like that. It’s not a barn, it’s a monster-slaughtering facility of immeasurable destruction that just happens to look like a barn. It’s camouflage. They’ll want to add carvings to the interior beams at the bare minimum.”

I forced myself not to roll my eyes. “So long as they finish on time and don’t sacrifice function for form, I encourage them to add whatever details they like. So is that a yes?”

“Landlord Arnold, it is not that simple. Yes, I’m interested in this project, which means the royal builders will most likely be interested in this project as well, which means nothing until we talk to the designers of this facility.”

“Why?”

“I believe I might be able to come up with some improvements.”

That worked for me.

I began ushering Pavatin back to Ranic’s carriage, thankful we didn’t have to walk. Salem hadn’t been wrong when he said I couldn’t feel my limits. I’d lost maybe ten pounds of muscle and all of my body fat during the night. My body’s shape had gone through a drastic transformation, leaving me looking like I was an anorexic long-distance runner.

I was constantly tired, cold, and hungry, and doing something as simple as walking was difficult. So we climbed into the carriage and I leaned back, closing my eyes for a second, hoping to regain some energy.

I woke to Pavatin gently shaking my shoulder. “We have arrived at Blackwood, Landlord Arnold. I’m going to get my people. I’ll be back shortly.”

I blinked a few times, clearing away my exhaustion and followed him outside. The carriage had stopped in front of Adoya’s house of scholars, a small kindness as it meant I didn’t have to travel anywhere.

Pavatin power-walked down the street in the direction of the cabins where his people worked. The streets had emptied back to their former levels, meaning there were quite a few people walking past, and a couple of kids running around playing games, but they weren’t so packed you couldn’t walk without bumping into someone.

I forced myself to stay awake as I entered the house of scholars. I nodded to Giffon, sitting at the front desk as I walked up. “I need you to summon the reaction team immediately.”

The pimply teenager gave an awkward bow. “At once, sir,” he said, before racing off.

The reaction team had come about because of the first burtag. Waking everyone in the middle of the night to deal with the new threat had apparently been the wrong move, despite Salem’s insistence. Half of the scholars and three-quarters of the trapsmiths were completely superfluous to my needs. A dozen unskilled brains were not more helpful than a single, skilled individual, not that any of the trapsmiths or scholars were unskilled. They just weren’t at the same stage as some of the older members of their class.

Thus the reaction team was born, the four best scholars and the five best trapsmiths. I wasn’t sure if Quilly was part of the trapsmith group because she was my retainer, or because of her own merits, but I was leaning towards the fact that she was my retainer. She was good at what she did. And a few of the others might not be quite as sharp as her, but they had fifty years of experience on her, and that made a significant difference.

I took a seat in the lobby and promptly fell asleep.

Adoya shook my shoulder, waking me. “You should be in a bed. A few minutes of rest here and there is not enough to sustain you. You need time to recover.”

“I’ll sleep as soon as it’s safe to,” I mumbled, wiping sleep from my eyes. “I’ve managed to convince Pavatin to help us. He’s going to convince the royal builders to construct dozens of the manual and automated barns around the reservoir to help against the next wave. Too many large monsters got through our lines and fed the giant. Durg’un said that if it keeps up, the giant might escape, and he won’t risk that. Next time he’s not going to let monsters pass to protect our people’s lives.”

“That’s fine, dear, but why are you here?”

“The royal architect thinks he can improve the barns before they build them. He’s gathering his team to brainstorm a few improvements.”

Adoya smiled. “Oh, this should be interesting.”

* * *

Isabelle shook her head as I yawned, clearly concerned for my health, and then looked at Sergeant Gurlad. “Must we do this now? I promise you, Landlord Arnold will treat you fairly, if you allow him time to rest.”

Gurlad shook his head, fighting a yawn, showing he hadn’t slept either. “I’m afraid so. People are already grumbling. It might lead to another mass exodus by tomorrow morning.”

Jeric sighed and folded his arms as Isabelle scowled.

“Fine,” she said. “Landlord Arnold, as the acting mayor, it has been requested of me by your workers to mediate a grievance they have against you. If an agreement cannot be found, this dispute will be reconvened before a judge. Sergeant Gurlad is here, as a representative of those of your employees who will one day run your trapsmith barns and have signed a liability waiver for this matter. They believe you have breached their employment contract by having them participate in monster-killing outside of barns. This was not part of the original agreement and has led to significant injuries and several deaths.”

I felt myself twinge as she said the word deaths. No one was dead when I passed out, but people died once I did. The increased number of large threats that got through, coupled with mounting exhaustion, meant people made mistakes. Seven died.

Jeric shook his head. “This won’t hold up in a court.”

Sergeant Gurlad folded his arms. “I’m not so sure about that. The giant is classified both as livestock and as a pet. It being livestock means the surrounding risks are part of the original contract, but it being a pet means Landlord Arnold is personally liable.”

“He would be liable to any farmer not under his employment. You do not have that protection.”

“You would leave my injured men and women with nothing? Take no responsibility? You would give them their 5% and wave away the problem?”

I frowned, confused by Gurlad’s statement, enough to pull me from darkening thoughts. “You don’t get 5%.”

Gurlad’s eyes widened. “We have a contract!”

I nodded, not understanding why he was upset. “That’s for running the barns. What happened last night wasn’t covered by that contract.”

“You slimy, little pretty boy! You’ll leave them with nothing! I have people with injuries who won’t be able to work for months. They have medical bills they need to pay. And you’re just going to take everything they earned and leave them!” He was shouting by the end.

“I don’t mean to sound callous, but so what if they can’t work? They’re still going to get paid. And I’m paying their medical bills, so why are they complaining?”

Gurlad shook his head, glaring. “What are you talking about?”

I stared at him, too tired and confused to be anything more than blunt. “What are you talking about first?”

“You said you’re going to keep paying the injured and take care of their healer’s costs?”

“Of course, I am. Why would you think I’m not?”

“It’s not in our contract.”

I blinked. “It’s not?”

“No, sir.” He managed to make the sir sound like a threat.

I ignored him and turned to Jeric. “Why isn’t that in their contract?”

“You told me to give them a standard farmer contract with several amendments for liability, danger pay, and experience share. You never said they would receive pay while injured, nor that you would pay for healers. And I didn’t consider it at all until now, as the only one who had ever been injured running barns was you.”

“Well, put it in and give them a new contract, backdated to before this happened.”

“I’ll contact the lawyers,” he said, making a note.

Sergeant Gurlad folded his arms. “I accept your changes to the contract on my people’s behalf, but I want injury payments for those who suffered.”

“Not happening,” I said. “I’m not going to incentivise injuries. And if you try to sell these changes to the others like you managed to pull it out of me, instead of just pointing out it was missing, I’ll take a damn oath in the village square and say it to them myself.”

“Will you cover resurrection cost?”

I paused, giving myself time to think. Death outside of old age wasn’t treated the same here as it was back home. It usually cost around 10 crowns to have clerics perform a basic resurrection, and there was a 52% chance of you coming back. If you paid 100 crowns, there was a 63% chance of it working. If you paid 1,000 crowns, there was a 99% chance of success. The only problem with these three options was you lost all your experience and blessings when it occurred.

“I’ll pay for basic resurrections, and will continue to pay their wages to their family for a year with an additional year for every four years they work for me if it fails. This only applies to death caused by a monster. Accidental death through the installation of traps will be treated on a case-by-case basis. This is another thing that should probably be in your contracts already.”

“What about the seven we lost? They didn’t know what they were getting into. None of us did. They died because you screwed up. You weren’t prepared.”

I swallowed. Ranic’s voice echoed through my head. Make the choice you can live with, the one that doesn’t keep you up at night when you’re an old man living with a pile of failures. “I’ll pay for a full resurrection this time. But only this time.”

Gurlad nodded, unhappily. “Let’s talk about our experience share for yesterday, then. We can walk away from our contract at any time, so you better be generous.”

I sighed, too exhausted for this conversation. “Look, I’m going to sound like a dick here, but I need everyone who I gave experience to yesterday to pay it back. I want half of anything they acquired to come back to me until they have repaid the debt. The other half will be an even split among everyone who fought. If they manage to repay the experience, they get to keep 5% from then on, with the rest of the total going to an even split among everyone involved. However, the standard experience-share rules for the barns apply.”

Gurlad coughed. “That was more generous than I expected. You realise you might double our levels and wages overnight.”

“It’s not like I did anything that you couldn’t all do yourselves.” I paused, thinking it over. “I mean, besides accidentally creating a scenario where hordes of monsters attacked my farm. From my perspective, you did the fighting yourselves, and you helped me keep my giant in check, so you reap the rewards.”

Gurlad began to smile. “You could easily argue that your advanced experience buffs entitle you to a share.” His smile faded. “In fact, many people will actually feel uncomfortable if you don’t take a cut,” he said, frowning. “This might cause problems.”

“Do you have any idea how much experience the barns generated last night?”

“No, sir. But I assume a lot. However, that doesn’t change the situation. Some people won’t be comfortable with this.”

“May I propose a compromise that will please both parties?” Isabelle asked.

I nodded because I was too tired to keep arguing.

Gurlad nodded, because he seemed like he couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Landlord Arnold doesn’t feel he deserves a share because you didn’t use his method, but Gurlad’s people will feel uncomfortable giving nothing in return for such wealth. I propose Landlord Arnold takes 5%. It is the same percentage he gives to your people for using his method. And the method employed last night is the militia’s method, so it has a poetic fairness to it that he should gain what you do when using yours.”

Gurlad and I grinned at each other.

“I like it,” I said.

“I do as well. Hopefully, I will be able to convince people accepting your new contract is better than taking you to court.”

Jeric cleared his throat. “Remind them that this will be a weekly occurrence from now on until the giant is dead.”

* * *

I walked into Gretel’s inn, finally heading for bed, only to have Torvac wave me over to the table he was sharing with Misk. He was still wearing his mithril plate, but he and Misk were on duty for another day, in case there were any late arrivals. “Friend Arnold, Torvac must speak on a matter most urgent.”

I had visited the injured, handed over the money Isabelle needed to have the system rebuild the barns, talked to Brek about the work that needed to happen inside, spoken with Durg’un again, organised our butchers to start butchering the beasts for the insane amount of butcher experience they could gather, and talked with the academy scholars about studying the giant’s new ability and how it affected the village’s aura.

Zector had been out there fighting and had seen multiple deep dwellers among monsters that stormed the village. He agreed that I needed to know if my operators were still safe. And the Academy of Law needed to know how the giant could disable the aura.

Finally, I checked out the reaction team’s progress. All that happened between a dozen naps, half a dozen meals, and several bathroom breaks.

I was exhausted. I wanted to go to bed. But Torvac and Misk were one of the main reasons everyone was still alive, so I forced myself to walk over and sit down.

“I’m happy to help,” I said.

Torvac nodded. “Friend Misk has something to say.”

“We can speak about this another time, Torvac. Can’t you see he’s suffering from attribute exhaustion? He’s overtaxed his body and still hasn’t stopped. He needs to rest.”

Torvac shook his head. “Money and secrets should not come between friends. Friend Arnold, Friend Misk spent 863 crowns and 43 nobles purchasing crossbow bolts from the system, through merchant class for Arnold’s farmers last night. It is all Misk has in this world, and Misk gave it without a second thought. Friend Misk, send Friend Arnold logs.”

I opened up my interface as the logs were sent to me and glanced at the purchase. Misk had bulk bought more than 132,000 crossbow bolts from the system in the early evening using his merchant class.

I scratched my head, embarrassed. The militia retired with their equipment, so I thought they were fine. No one had told me they weren’t. “I hadn’t known ammunition was a problem.”

“It turned out to be more than they needed,” Misk said. “But I didn’t want to risk people’s lives by trying to save money. You don’t have to repay me.”

I shook my head and retrieved 900 crowns from my purse. Despite his unsightly appearance, the man was a freaking saint. He wasn’t being polite. He actually meant it when he said I didn’t have to repay him. I put the nine gold bars on the table and slid the pile toward him.

Torvac smiled at my actions and a prompt appeared before me.

Your relationship with Torvac has improved from Friendly to Friend. As a Friend, Torvac can be relied upon to keep your secrets and help you when you are in trouble, but don’t ask for something crazy, or he is likely to say no.

I smiled as I continued my conversation with Misk. “If you need to do it again, don’t hesitate. I’ll repay anything you spend.”

“This is more than I spent, Arnold.”

“Consider it a down payment. I don’t think I have enough backup traps to repair the damaged barns and expand. I’m going to need your ability to cover any shortfall. Now, how much do you want me to pay you for your time out there yesterday?”

Misk laughed, wheezing so hard he started coughing. Torvac smacked his back and the coughing immediately stopped. Misk glared at him. “I told you not to do that.”

“But it works.”

Misk decided to ignore him and turned back to me. “Arnold, I’ve badgered you with questions every night since we arrived. You’ve saved me years in research, pointing my studies towards places that I might have never found on my own. If you were to charge me for this knowledge, I couldn’t afford it. If the cost of this knowledge is participating in an occasional scrap, then I am happy to pay the price.”

“The waves will come weekly until the giant is killed.”

Misk shrugged, still smiling.

Torvac scowled. “Torvac does not like guarding western side of village. All that comes from western side is wolves, razor boar, and angry dwarves who Torvac is not allowed to kill, only maim. Torvac so bored Torvac makes game of seeing how far Torvac can kick angry dwarf. It is very far. But it is boring if done more than fifty times.”

I blinked. “More than fifty dwarves tried to attack the village during the night?”

“Final number is ninety-nine. Torvac is very upset it is not even one hundred.”

“Fuck, those dwarves are assholes,” I grumbled.

* * *

The following day, Adoya and Pavatin led me down into one of the simulation rooms. There was a knee-high lip on the floor, behind which sat the illusion sand. Six different versions of the same barn were displayed, showing different parts of the inner workings.

“Pavatin and his people have come up with an acceptable prototype during the night,” Adoya said. “We can now install pressure plates for traps on the roof and walls, with 24% increased lethality.”

Pavatin smiled. “It is a good first step, but I believe we can do more, given sufficient time. We would like your approval for using this design for the new barns and permission to continue working with your reaction team.”

I was still exhausted. A good night’s sleep wasn’t enough to fix what I had done to my body. I needed food and time. I only had one of those things. “Adoya, how different is the new internal layout?”

“Marginally, the additional lethality comes mostly from external defences and better internal spacing. The spacing in the existing barns was not optimised for their intent.”

“Are there going to be issues with training people to use these new ones?”

“Always, but that is a risk any time we make a change.”

I wanted to say no, that now wasn’t the time to take unnecessary risks. But that wasn’t entirely true. We needed better defences. The giant war ants had demolished one of the manual barns simply because we couldn’t affect those outside. Additional protection might have stopped that from happening. “Keep working on better designs, but build these for now.”

* * *

I walked up the ramp around Arnold’s Hill to the top, put my guitar case down, and slumped onto the pillows next to Durg’un. He was sitting by himself, drinking his way through the second barrel of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout. I’d given him this one for keeping my people alive through the first wave.

“You should rest more,” Durg’un said. “Even the lich knows his limits.”

“It’s been three days. That’s like two weeks of regular recovery with my constitution.”

“That is not enough time for a human to recover from what you did to your body. You need at least another week.”

“The next wave will arrive before then. And I’m going to help.”

“I won’t allow your foolishness to claim your life. I need you alive, so don’t push me. I’ll bury you up to your neck before I let you go out there during the next wave.”

He was serious. “Fuck you.”

“Stop being insolent. Go buy more blessings if you want to recover faster.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand why you don’t have them already.”

“There’s no cleric in Blackwood,” I said. “Also, I haven’t bothered to find place-holders for the larger cores.” The ones I bought in the capital were sitting in Jeric’s vault gathering dust.

Durg’un turned and gave me a dead-pan look. “You have access to blessings from the surface?”

“Yeah, but only about 229.”

“List them off, and I will find you dwarves who will pay high for the opportunity. Cores from surface monsters are rare in our kingdoms. There are dwarves among my group who will never gain another chance to acquire what you have. Only those who trade with your people can easily gain access to surface blessings, since your king won’t allow their sale outside your borders.”

“We still need a cleric.”

“We have one with us who can perform the ritual. I’ll allow you access to the burtag core I harvested if you do this for my people. It is a rare core and controlled in your kingdom. You will have to gain one for yourself or receive it as a gift from your king to acquire it.”

I was going to say yes. But Durg’un sounded like he really wanted access to what I had, and I was still smarting over him forcing me to take the potion and give him the experience. So I figured that I should push him a little.

“How many people can use the burtag core?”

“Perhaps 40. I’m not sure.”

“I want five spots. And when your clan takes over the forge, I want them to bring a set of cores with them from monsters the kingdom doesn’t have access to, enough for 10 people. If you do this for me, I’ll buy more cores for those interested while they’re here.”

The five spots would let me give the rare blessing to my inner circle. If Emily wasn’t off studying at the academy, I’d have asked for a spot for her, too.

Durg’un frowned and took a drink from his tankard. “I hadn’t considered that having some of my clan here would give access to your kingdom’s blessings. This opens up interesting possibilities. I might be able to convince my sister to come with this. It will fix much of the fighting if we were rid of her.”

“Don’t go dumping your problem cases at my door.”

“She would not be a problem for you.”

“But she is for you?”

“My sister is a difficult woman to have in a clan.”

“More difficult than you?”

Durg’un nodded while he chuckled. “I accept your deal. Now tell me what you have to offer my people.”

* * *

+69 Endurance

+111 Constitution

+52 Intelligence

* * *

My heightened constitution caused a mental shift to occur within me when it passed 400. It was far greater than the one that occurred when it passed 300. It wasn’t just that my recovery rate had doubled for the third time, letting me heal eight times faster than normal. It was that I felt less vulnerable, less human. The mental shift made me categorise injuries differently. The changes had nothing to do with the fact I was tougher. It was about how I viewed the injuries I took. A broken arm suddenly didn’t seem like a big deal anymore. I’d be over the worst of it by the end of the second day and be more or less fine by the end of the week.

It was unsettling to think like this.

So I sat on Arnold’s Hill watching Blackwood, trying to come to terms with the changes.

We’d pulled everyone back to the village early in the morning to prepare for the next wave. The village was locked down, every building literally packed to the rafters. People weren’t running or fussing. They knew where they were supposed to be, so the chaos I saw despite its appearance was everyone being orderly and efficient.

The royal builders hadn’t enjoyed the overcrowding during the first wave, so had volunteered to stay in the sewers working through the night. A handful of them had a combat class or skill trained up, and they were guarding the entrances. They could do whatever they wanted, as far as I was concerned. Miracle workers deserved that sort of treatment. I’d given them less than a week to surround the reservoir with automated and manual trap barns, and they’d managed to do it.

They were by far the greatest miracle workers, but they weren’t the only ones.

My operators had spent the last week building fortified positions, filling the area between the new barns with spike walls, choke points, and anything else they could think of. We were in far better shape than I would have thought possible. Even the trapsmiths had pulled together, working day and night. There was now a new type of trapdoor, one that sat in the open, disguised as ground. It wouldn’t work along the border, but in a smaller area around the reservoir, it would be much more effective.

Durg’un had warned everyone to expect only a slightly smaller wave than the last. The giant’s ability had several ranges, one where it caused the stronger charm effect, but two others that were much bigger, which caused a lesser effect that replenished the area that was vacated. The titans of old had never wanted for food, so we were in for a long night.

But we were so prepared this time that the next wave wasn’t worrying me as much as the mental shift raising my constitution caused. I didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel like myself.

I opened my interface and stared at my stats.

I’d lost a great deal of muscle, muscle I hadn’t replaced. I should still be struggling to walk. But I wasn’t; not since my constitution had passed 400. My body no longer considered the damage significant. I was too tough for my injuries. So, I wasn’t classified as injured. And because I wasn’t classified as injured, my strength attribute was taking up the slack. It let me behave like I wasn’t missing all that muscle.

My body felt wrong with how well it could function. I should have been freaking out, but I wasn’t. My charisma kept me objective. But even assessing the changes objectively, I was concerned about what was happening.

Each time my numbers went up, I was a little less frail and weak. So much of the human experience was wrapped up in those feelings that I wasn’t sure what I would become without them. I’d given myself a pretty good cut shaving this morning, and now it was barely there. It would be gone by the time the sun went down.

These attributes were changing me in ways I’d never really thought about. Like I still couldn’t do the splits, but that was only because my dexterity was so low. Otherwise, I’d be Van Damme-ing it all over the place. Who would I be when that happened? What would I need to be happy? Would I still like playing guitar when there was no challenge, when playing came as easily as breathing? Would I find something else to entertain me?

I wasn’t sure if all of these changes were good.

I wasn’t sure of a lot of things.

But I put my internal crisis aside, shoved the last of my sandwich into my mouth, picked myself up, and started making my way towards The Wild Woods. I could examine this later.

Right now, I had monsters to kill.

STEP 38

SMALL SUCCESSES ADD UP TO BIG CHANGES

Hamlin led me to the parlour and closed the doors, cutting off the giggly discussion Isabelle and Ava were having in the sitting room. Jeric didn’t look up as he sat at the table pouring over the farm’s accounts, making notes and trying to organise the mess I’d created. Our first month of monster waves was a montage of hectic chaos. It was only in the last few days that we finally got a handle on our problems.

Thankfully, the waves were something Blackwood was uniquely suited to manage, allowing us to test the limits of my trap method. If this happened anywhere else in Radian, it would be a disaster. But half the operators now laughed with glee every time the giant used its Gluttonous Feast to attract monsters, excited by the experience they knew they would earn from the violence.

The first wave was by far the worst we encountered. And despite having another death during our last one, we’d been in control more or less the entire time, working like a well-oiled house of lunatics. We’d find out tomorrow whether Brendalin’s death stuck. Everyone was hoping it wouldn’t. We still hadn’t experienced a permanent death. And we all wanted to see her running around, as happy as everyone else.

She deserved it after saving so many lives.

I slid into the seat next to Jeric, helping myself to one of his BLT sandwiches. “How are we looking?”

I bit through the soft, wholemeal bread and tomato, feeling the familiar crunch of the lettuce, and felt tension from the bacon, knowing it wasn’t going to taste right. They didn’t have the same curing methods for bacon as back home, so it was impossible to mimic the flavours I was used to. But food was food, and my body needed to replace spent calories from all the running I did each week.

“That depends on what you’re asking about,” Jeric said, moving his plate away from me. “If you’re asking about the state of your paperwork, then it’s terrible. It’s an unreadable mess. If Fitz hadn’t organised it for me, I’d still be trying to figure out whether or not you have any clue what’s going on. You should give him a raise.”

I swallowed my mouthful and grinned. “He earns more than you do after that last one I gave him.”

Jeric paused, searching my expression. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious. Also, you have lettuce in your teeth.”

I ignored his lettuce comment, but held off my next bite long enough to say, “You’re in charge of paying him, so you should know.”

“I am, which is why I’m wondering if you’re being serious. I haven’t paid him any raises.”

“But I signed the forms,” I said, mumbling through a full mouth.

Jeric relaxed. “Ah, that makes more sense.”

I stared at him blankly, taking another bite.

Jeric explained, “He’s paid directly to his bank. Those documents likely let him accrue his additional wages, so that he can be paid all at once.”

I swallowed the mouthful and put the second half of the sandwich aside. “What’s the point of that?”

“He’s having marital trouble with his wife, and she has access to the account.”

I knew they were having trouble since she left, but this sounded more serious than I thought the situation was. It was always a bad sign if spouses were hiding money from each other. I’m pretty sure that applied even in arranged marriages.

“Back to the topic at hand,” Jeric continued, ignoring Fitz’s matrimonial trouble. “As of last week, Rina has sold all the experience from the first wave that she said she could. She managed to find a few more foreign buyers than she originally thought, so your financial situation is slightly better than we anticipated it would be, but we still need to be careful. She can’t sell any more for a while, so any more purchases like those resurrections and you will be in trouble.”

“I’m not planning to do that again.”

“Good, because your infrastructure is still lacking, you aren’t making money, and our food situation isn’t anywhere near as good as I would like it.”

“What do I have to worry about that I can affect in some way?”

I was learning there was a limit to how I could be helpful in a big organisation. Worrying about anything I couldn’t help with was pointless.

Jeric tossed me a file. “We’ve given the great boon to nine members of your farmer network. I need you to find more people who want it.”

I thought Fitz had me up to date on this subject, so Jeric’s comment surprised me. “How do we have so many after only four waves?”

“Ranic realised how effective the mithril net system was, after the first wave, and had the nets of the new barns around the reservoirs be installed by another participant. We’re currently gaining two boons every wave. If you don’t find more people who need them soon, the opportunity is going to go to waste.”

“Have you asked Rina to send some people?”

“Yes. Rina said she won’t be ready until you go wide. She’s going through her own vetting process and isn’t worried about taking a few years longer to acquire everyone’s boons, so long as she has the right people in place.”

There were sixteen villages and towns within five days’ travel of Blackwood, and only fourteen had shown interest in becoming part of my network in return for the boon. The two holdouts lived in the towns that were largest and furthest away. The growth from the boon was great long-term, but the short-term difficulties were too much for them to accept the risk, even though the regent wasn’t actively working against me anymore. So even if I could get them to agree, they would only buy us another week.

“Should I see if more of the operators are interested in gaining the great boon?”

Jeric frowned. “What do you mean, more of them?”

“Lenlin’s been cycling the operators through the manual barns with each wave so that once they’ve gained the necessary experience for the boon, they fight with the rest of the operators. He’s also shrunk the number of people installing traps to the bare minimum, and some of them have started to gain it, too.”

“What?”

“Sergeant Gurlad has also told me that some of the crossbowmen will soon have the boon, as well.”

“What?”

I reached out and patted Jeric’s baffled shoulder. “I told you, Fitz is better than you in every way. You need to try harder if you want to keep up.”

Jeric sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Since you’re so well-informed, would you like to take over this meeting?”

I grinned, taking my hand back. “If I did that, how would you learn?”

Jeric returned my grin. “That’s true. Watching you trying to stumble your way through teaching me wouldn’t be helpful.”

I chuckled. “But it would be amusing. I’ll talk to my people for you and get back to you about who we can give the boon to.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“What else do I need to know?”

Jeric looked down and flipped through several pages to find his notes. “The Weldon smithies are going to be late on their next delivery. There were some minor complications with the merchant guild. Isabelle is pregnant. The royal builders are behind schedule, again. Manson needs to see a cleric because his legs aren’t healing properly. Actually, quite a few of the operators need to see a cleric because of similar issues. So, I’d like to organise a caravan for them to one of the cities.”

Jeric so artfully glossed over his middle point that I was halfway through giving my approval for the caravan before it hit me. “Isabelle is pregnant?”

Jeric smiled.

It was the largest smile I’d ever seen him wear. My friend had always wanted to have more children, but had lacked the experience to let them keep their class, so he hadn’t been willing to do so. That was no longer a problem, because of the exploit he controlled. So, I guess he got his wish.

“Yaceb confirmed it this morning.”

“Congratulations!” I said, excited for them.

Jeric chuckled, pleased with himself. “Thank you. Now, if you could repeat your expression and the level of excitement you’ve displayed when we make the announcement, I’d appreciate it.”

I grinned. “You weren’t supposed to tell me, were you?”

Jeric tried to keep a straight face. “I haven’t told anyone anything, as far as my wife is concerned.”

* * *

Well done, you have perfectly used a hoe for every step on your path to growing a decent wheat crop and gained a new rank in your tool proficiency. You can now boast that you can use a hoe as well as any Expert.

“So, basically don’t tell Jeric I told you, and act surprised when Isabelle tells you,” I said, waiting for the light to vanish.

Ranic chuckled as I finished catching him up on the local gossip. “You’re the second person to tell me this secret today.”

I blinked and turned to stare. Ranic’s eyes crinkled with happiness as he smiled.

I’d been impressed that I’d managed to keep my mouth shut for three days, fighting the impulse to share their good news. Finding out I’d been fighting it for nothing was annoying. “Who told you?”

“Quilly.”

“Who told her?”

“Adoya.”

“Who told her?”

“Ava did, but Ava heard it from Isabelle. Apparently, Isabelle can’t keep the secret either.”

“What do you mean, either?”

“Jeric told his weekly poker game that they were expecting, and I’ve heard from those who were there through half a dozen people already.”

I stared at him. “So, basically, everyone in the village knows, but we’ve all got to pretend like we don’t and act like we are surprised when they make the revelation.”

Ranic laughed harder. “Welcome to village life, Arnold. Where everyone knows everyone’s secrets and pretends they don’t. Congratulations on reaching Expert. Now we can move on to planting.”

I rolled my eyes and gathered up the tools, dumping them in the wheelbarrow. Ranic gathered his things, and we started making our way back to Blackwood. The next step required we spend a bit of time in Ranic’s house of scholars, so I could practice before we did it for real.

“Did you manage to find anyone we can give the great boon to?” I asked.

“Only one has accepted. There are plenty of farmers who want the boon, but few who are willing to tie themselves to you to gain access.”

“I was hoping that, with all your connections, we might be able to find more people interested.”

“I know you were, but I warned you that old towns and cities have much greater reach than those around here do. Anywhere that is established can already access what you have. Or have something close to as good.”

“So, I need to start giving the boons to the operators’ spouses?”

“I didn’t say that. I spoke to the owner of the farm I purchased your heritage seed from. She has the same first threshold boon as you do. She would be willing to give you 10,000 apple heritage seeds for a great boon for her granddaughter. Those seeds, once planted, are worth enough farming points to gain access to every farming upgrade available, not including leveling your fields, and will allow you to pass through your fifth threshold when you reach level 125.”

Some heritage seeds weren’t rare, only expensive. One of the reasons Ranic had wanted to grow tough apples was the ease with which he could grow perfect crops. Because of my boon, perfect apple crops gave a 2% chance for orchards on my property to produce a heritage seed. With my luck, that 2% became 4.36%. That didn’t mean anything money-wise, since farms buying heritage seeds was a rare occurrence, but it did mean a lot farming-points-wise.

When I finally got a proper orchard established, it was going to be spitting out hundreds of the seeds every month, each one worth 1,000 farming points. It would have shaved decades off getting the farm upgraded. But I had other ways of doing that now. I didn’t need the heritage seeds for points, but having a way through my fifth threshold would be nice.

The waves were generating so much experience that I might have enough from my boon to reach level 125 the moment I accepted my fourth threshold. Methods for passing through those thresholds were so scarce that people would rarely pick and choose, which is why Ranic was likely suggesting it.

“I’ve got another farmer willing to trade you a heritage seed of every known variety. The trees won’t be able to be grafted from, because you didn’t buy them, and the chance of stumbling on one of the better magical varieties is small, and normally not worth purchasing a full set; but if you don’t have to pay a thousand crowns for each of them, it is worth the risk. I can get you dozens of offers like these. None of them are what you want, but each will be an opportunity to make your farm stronger.”

I paused.

“I can see what you’re thinking, Arnold, and yes, on the surface, these offers don’t seem that helpful to you, but taking these deals will earn you a lot of goodwill. It will make you friends. It will make you potential allies. It will also do a lot of good that you won’t benefit from. And isn’t that what your farm is about, doing good you don’t benefit from?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s also about doing what is smart. And is this smart?”

“It might be. It’s one of those situations where only time will tell.”

* * *

“Hello again, Sarion,” I said, making my dislike for the dwarf clear through my tone. “Welcome to Arnold’s butchery. Can I interest you in a shoulder roast this evening? It’s the only part of the roast we have left in stock, I’m afraid.”

We were over a mile from the northern hamlet in an area used for grazing. The recent arrival of a large dairy herd made it easier to keep the grass short, so Durg’un spotted his people leaving their work lines sooner than he used to.

Sarion turned and glared at Durg’un, who was pinning him to the ground. “Are you letting this human eat the parts you cut off me?”

Durg’un shrugged. “He told me he was disposing of them to reduce the chances of disease. I didn’t bother to ask how.”

Sarion squirmed around and glared at me. “Stop eating me!”

The dwarf’s indignation over the miscommunication made me decide to have as much fun as I could at the asshole’s expense. I’d grown numb to what we were doing to them and what they were trying to do to us. Somehow, this nightly horror show had turned into just another job.

“Look, if you don’t want to be eaten, then maybe you should stop getting caught trying to kill my people! Maybe then I won’t have tender pieces of dwarf meat lying around that make me curious. You taste lovely with apple sauce, by the way.”

Sarion’s eyes went wide right before Durg’un cut off the only piece of arm he had left. Durg’un smacked him in the back of the head, knocking him out cold, before he could go for me.

I picked up Sarion’s bicep, seeing the blood drip from the bandage-free end, having a rather messed up idea.

Durg’un paused, watching me. “I don’t like the look in your eyes. What are you going to do with that?” He sounded unsettled.

“Put it in a pot with peeled potatoes and squash and send it to him with instructions on how to cook it.”

Durg’un shook his head and sighed. “You need a break from all this violence, Arnold. Death constantly surrounds you, and your anger is making you cold and callous.”

“It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.”

Durg’un walked over, reached up, and placed his massive hand on my shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze. “Whether or not he deserves it is not the point. The fact that you feel comfortable doing something so macabre is the point. What you speak of is not justice. It is vengeance. And it is vengeance that wants you to torment your persecutor. Killing Sarion for what he is trying to do is one thing. But torturing him is an entirely different matter. All you will achieve is making someone feel pain greater than your own. Feeding that desire will twist your personality into someone you’re not.”

I snorted, not caring. “Or I’ll scare the shit out of the other dwarves and make them rethink their whole stance on slaughtering the village.”

Durg’un dropped his hand from my shoulder. “Is that what you’re doing here?”

“Maybe, I mean it’s messed up, but hopefully it will scare them.”

Durg’un chuckled. “I felt very uncomfortable as you told me what you planned to do, so that might actually work.”

I grinned at him. “You think?”

He nodded. “We should make several recipes to go along with your dish and give Sarion a timetable with what nights you would like certain members of our expedition to try their luck at attacking your people, because their flavours match what you want to cook.”

I chuckled. “I just thought up an idea for a finger stew that I’ll describe as ‘finger-licking good’.”

* * *

Durg’un and I were both laughing as we watched the sun rise two days later. None of the dwarves had so much as stepped away from their work lines since I’d sent Sarion his arm and a request for more ingredients. It wasn’t that they were scared; they were all just creeped out by the thought that I was eating them.

Durg’un mentioned that I used to live with a ghost, which had started up a whole other round of speculation on what I might be doing with their body parts. The dwarves considered me a greater pervert than anyone in the village ever had, and it was thankfully keeping people safe.

Hopefully, this would keep going until they left.

* * *

Fitz met me at the bottom of the stairs of Gretel’s inn late the following morning, ready to go over the day’s business. I’d paid Gretel to permanently reserve a table for me, so there was a steaming bowl of porridge and a small container of honey waiting for me when we sat down. My days were now so hectic I rarely had the luxury of being able to wait for meals.

Fitz started talking the moment I put food in my mouth. “The royal builders have finished the sewer system outside the village. They want to begin working on the basements and the upper drainage system, so I’ve been instructed to ask you if there are any changes in the prioritisation of buildings.”

I swallowed the mouthful of porridge, enjoying the familiar flavour. The new dairy herd had given Blackwood access to plenty of fresh milk, making a formerly scarce food common. Gretel wasn’t sure what we’d do with it all, so I’d mentioned my mum made oat porridge with milk instead of water and she’d given it a try. She liked it so much she no longer made it with water.

I stopped eating. “I think we need the trapsmiths outside the wall. Their attitude and their tendency to trap their workshops are causing problems; people are afraid of going near their part of the village. So ask the royal builders to construct a few of the smaller trapsmith workshops first, enough to get them out of the way.”

Fitz sighed, showing he was annoyed with me. “Shouldn’t we prioritize at least one of the nicer stack dwellings for Ilia? She’s been here for over a month.”

“And you’re the only one complaining about it.”

Fitz lost his professional demeanour, openly glaring at me for the first time ever. “Landlord Arnold, Ilia is the royal songbird, one of the most famous bards in the kingdom, but the single greatest singer. To see her staying here is an insult any respecter of the arts wouldn’t stand for.”

Fitz was a fan.

But like any fan, he didn’t know his idol personally. I pushed my meal aside and scratched my cheek, feeling too much stubble. I’d have to stop by the barber’s after breakfast.

I met Fitz’s indignant gaze. “Have you spoken with Ilia about this matter, Fitz? Because I have. I spent ten days in her company under a charm effect. So, I know a little more about her than the average person. Yes, she’s a truly amazing artist, but she’s also a wonderful woman who cares about people, no matter their station in life.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with providing her with adequate housing.”

“It has everything to do with providing more to her, Fitz. Ilia’s voice is so intoxicating that she charms someone every other month; and instead of delegating this problem to others, she helps those she affects get over that effect herself. Most of the time, she can do so in her home, but sometimes she can’t. Sometimes she charms a farmer’s wife and has to live with them for a week, sleeping on the floor of their small cottage so the mother remembers to feed her newborn and toddlers. Sometimes it’s a village healer who is the only person able to care for those around them. Ilia puts up with whatever living conditions are required to help these people without a hint of protest, because that is who she is. She’s no doubt seen the thousands living in tents and is grateful for the roof over her head. Giving her further preferential treatment would upset her, and I don’t want to do that.”

Fitz’s mouth actually dropped open. “I didn’t realise you knew her so well.”

“That is because you never asked.”

“I suppose I didn’t.”

“I hope you understand my position, because I’m done discussing this matter.”

Fitz nodded, regaining his professional perspective. “I apologise for being so forceful. I won’t bring it up again. Now, if you’re going to move the trapsmith workshops up to the front of the list, you will need to move something back, or would you like to keep the following order the same?”

That was a good question. The trapsmith workshops were going in around the foundry. When the foundry was done, it would be larger than the ones in Weldon and capable of forging anything we needed. Pavatin had convinced me to build it, instead of the four smaller ones, because it took half the space and gave 90% of the same output along with being capable of creating larger projects.

“Move the foundry to the bottom of the list.”

Fitz frowned. “That will leave several hundred blacksmiths without the ability to work.”

“We’re behind schedule, and that’s one of the largest projects. Do you have a better idea?”

“Your research and development building is both larger and more time-consuming, and your teams are perfectly capable of working out of the other craftsmen’s workshop, though at reduced capacity. To me, this seems to be the obvious choice.”

“Inventors need offices as well as workshops. Without space to think they can’t work properly. And the workshops aren’t that.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve approached Adoya about extending our timeframe for using her house of scholars. There aren’t enough trapsmith scholars in the kingdom for her to use it to full capacity when the abandonment order is lifted, so the additional space isn’t needed by her people. She’s agreeable to the notion.”

Fitz was a huge timesaver, but he also made me redundant in the process. For the hundredth time since hiring him, I said, “Sure, let’s do it your way.” It was becoming my catchphrase.

Fitz nodded.

“I’ll inform Pavatin of the changes. Which reminds me, I’ve been told to tell you that construction has been started on your farm manor. It will be ready within the month.”

* * *

The barbed bolt from my hand crossbow slammed into Sarion’s left buttock as I chased after him. Sarion corrected his stumble, so he didn’t fall, and he continued running, but he lost some of the spring in his step. I started reloading, making sure I kept at least ten yards between me and the armless dwarf. You’d think someone without arms would be easy to overpower, but these damn dwarves’ could all jump-kick like they were Bruce Lee. They could even use their toes as nimbly as I used my fingers, so I had to worry about them flicking rocks at my head.

“You can’t stop us all, you dwarf-eating scum!” Sarion shouted. “Every day more join our cause. Shoot me all you like; one of us will get through.”

I took his taunt poorly, getting angry with him. These dwarves had been given chance after chance to change, and none of them had done so. I was sick and tired of using kid gloves with these assholes.

Fuck it. If he dies, he dies.

I stopped reloading the small hand crossbow, designed to slow them down, and attached it to my belt, so I could untie my war pitchfork from my back.

My little trick with the dwarf dinner had bought us a week of peace at the cost of letting these assholes plan. They were now working in teams. Timing their incursions to when something dangerous came out of The Wild Woods or when most of them were fit and healthy.

Sarion was the weakest of the dozen that had come in this group, which is why Durg’un left him for me to deal with alone.

I lifted my war pitchfork as I chased him, aimed for his thigh, and then threw in one smooth motion, activating the critical strike enchantment. There was a flash of light as the pitchfork launched forward, hurtling across the short distance. One fork slammed into the top of his left thigh, as it was meant to, and the other went high and to the right, slamming into the base of his spine.

Sarion’s legs crumbled, and he crashed face-first into the ground. Without arms to break his fall, he skidded across the dirt comically.

Oops.

I slowed to a stop, reequipped the hand crossbow, and quickly reloaded. He couldn’t be trusted. This was likely a ruse.

Sarion turned his head to look over his shoulder, far more flexible than he looked, assessing the damage I’d done. “Is that a fucking pitchfork? You hit me in the spine, asshole. I can’t move my legs. How am I supposed to work?”

I finished loading the small bolt, took aim, and then shot him in the thigh.

“Ouch, stop shooting me, asshole.”

He could still feel. He was faking. He wanted me to come closer so he could beat the stuffing out of me. I began reloading. When I finished, I shot him in the other thigh.

“Ouch, stop shooting me. I give up! I give up!”

I kept shooting him.

Durg’un found me a few minutes later, still shooting Sarion’s legs. There were a good thirty small bolts in him now. He looked like a porcupine. But his health was still half full. I shot him one last time, turned, and then nodded to Durg’un.

Sarion had begun crying a minute ago. I paid his crocodile tears no thought. The asshole was definitely trying to get me close enough to hurt me.

“You stop them?”

Durg’un nodded, watching Sarion with concern. “You realise he’s paralyzed from the waist down? You’ve severed his spine.”

I shook my head. “He’s faking it. He still feels every shot.”

“Dwarves don’t lose feeling like humans do. We have a redundant nervous system that is just for sensation. He’s been incapacitated since you hit him in the lower back with the war pitchfork.”

“I told you,” Sarion moaned.

“Shut up. No one asked you for your input. And like I was ever going to believe your lying ass.”

Durg’un scowled. “Let me knock him out, and we’ll collect the others.”

I held out my hand to stop him. “Let me do this. I need to learn how hard it is to knock your people out if I’m going to be more helpful to you.”

“It might be impossible with your strength.”

I shrugged. “We need to know that. There might be a time where I have to knock one of your people out to deal with another. So, it’s better to test if it’s possible now. If it makes you feel better, think of this like we’re doing it for science, not just because he deserves it.”

Durg’un scowled. “Fine. But only because the threat is genuine enough to merit such actions.”

I grinned, and I walked over to Sarion. “All right, asshole, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me.” I brought my boot heel down on the back of his head as hard as I could.

“Ouch, stop it.”

I booted him in the back of the head again.

“Ouch, just let Chief Durg’un do it.”

I did it again.

“Ouch, Chief Durg’un stop him.”

I did it half a dozen more times, like I was a dog’s spastic hind leg, thump, thump, thump, each strike causing no visible effect. It was like I was hitting rock.

“He didn’t even lose any health,” Durg’un pointed out.

“That’s fine. I’ve got another idea.” I jumped, bringing both heels down on Sarion’s head at the same time.

A typical dwarf’s strength naturally started above 200, so they were born with skin tougher than leather. The muscles and everything underneath were just as tough, making injuring them difficult.

I started jumping to the beat of “Jump Around”.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Stop! Ouch! Stop! Ouch!”

Despite my enthusiasm, it turned out I was only giving him love taps. It was the jolting crossbow bolts that were likely the main source of his pain.

I stepped off the swearing dwarf. “It’s not working.”

Durg’un nodded. “You need a club.”

“I can’t use a club. The system won’t let me. I can use a quarterstaff.”

“It’s not heavy enough. You need something that is also harder.”

I frowned, thinking. “Don’t knock him out. I’ve got an idea.”

Durg’un sighed. “I’ll return the others, then.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Sarion yelled.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

I was back in five minutes.

I put down two of the three items I’d collected from the northern hamlet and walked up to Sarion. “You still awake?”

He turned and glared at me. “I am going to find you and kill you one day.”

I grinned at the evil bastard, leaning down so he could see my face clearer. “I know that, Sarion. But when you come for me, Durg’un’s not going to be around to save you.”

I could see he didn’t believe me. But that didn’t matter. I had a plan for when they came back, and there was very little chance of them surviving.

I stood up, gripped the wooden handle of the shovel, and swung the flat side down onto the back of his head with everything I had, jolting my arms and hearing a meaty clang. It was far more effective in the movies. Sarion didn’t even say ouch. He just swore at me.

I did it another twelve times before giving up.

I went back to my other two options. I had a blacksmith’s hammer and a large cast iron frying pan from one of the communal mess halls.

Durg’un wasn’t around, and I didn’t exactly want to kill the asshole, now that I’d been able to vent some of my frustration, not when I’d get in trouble at least, so I picked up the frying pan.

I walked over and smacked Sarion in the back of the head, feeling the strike vibrate through my muscles.

“Ouch!”

An interface sprang to life, overlaying his body.

I froze, having never seen this interface before. I knew what this was, though. Ranic and the operators had described this to me. It was supposed to be attached to an ability called Weak Points. The ability was so useful that the militia were given it as a standard part of their gear.

I grinned.

Naturally acquiring abilities was rare, but it occurred a few times over everyone’s life. This was my first one. And it was one I could use, which was a massive bonus.

My grin grew as I continued to look at the dwarf. There was a small spot of light near the top of Sarion’s head. I swung the frying pan at it.

“Ouch!” This time Sarion’s cry came out a little slurred.

The light moved to behind his right ear.

I hit him again.

“Ouch!” Sarion groaned.

The light moved to behind his other ear, glowing brighter.

I lifted the frying pan above my shoulder and put everything I had into my next swing, bringing it down and into the spot behind his other ear. There was a louder clank and an oof as Sarion passed out.

“How did you do that?” Durg’un asked.

Durg’un was always sneaking up on me. He didn’t even need to try. His natural movements were so graceful he didn’t cause a sound unless he forced himself to.

I turned to him, chuckling. “You just have to put your back into it.”

He shook his head. “No, I mean how did you know which order to target the three separate points to compound the damage?”

“When I first hit him with the frying pan, I gained an interface overlay. I think I just naturally acquired the ability, Weak Points. It shows weak points. Farmers can use it for all sorts of things on their farm.”

Durg’un shook his head again. “I don’t think you gained that ability. That was a combo attack you just did.”

“Oh, maybe it’s a combo weak points ability, then.”

Durg’un shrugged. “You should have your scholars examine you. If the ability is new, it might be useful.”

“Ouch!”? Sarion groaned, coming around. “Who hit me?”

I turned and smacked his weak point with the frying pan again.

* * *

“You can put your shirt back on,” Ranic said, stepping back from the control device. We were in a room in his house of scholars that I’d never been in before. There were several large, crystal devices pointed at the centre of the room where I stood.

“So, is it a new ability?”

“No, you’re not so lucky in that department. It’s an old ability. It’s called Sow Reaper.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t have. It was classified as a build breaker, and several other drawbacks, so it isn’t distributed or talked about except among scholars. It has the same cost requirement as your movement speed ability if acquired traditionally, but doesn’t offer anywhere near the same level of benefits. It’s a more effective version of the Weak Point ability, but nowhere near worth the cost.”

“So, what’s the combo part Durg’un mentioned?”

“Well, if you use this while hoeing, you will get a better read on where to hit to be more effective, increasing your efficiency just through that alone. However, every third strike will be similar to a critical and so be twice as effective. It will gain you a further 33% to hoeing speed on top of the improved efficiency.”

“That’s underwhelming. Is there anything else I need to know about it?”

Ranic looked at me for a second and then shook his head. “No. Nothing important comes to mind.”

* * *

The following afternoon, I strode into Ranic’s office, scowling. He saw my face, threw back his head, and roared with laughter.

My scowl grew. “You failed to mention that ability has a broader range of triggers and interactions than Weak Points does. An hour ago, my date pulled down her pants only to light up like a freaking street lamp.”

Ranic laughed harder.

“It’s not funny.”

STEP 39

COMING TO GRIPS WITH YOUR PROBLEMS

Gretel’s inn was full when Durg’un walked through the door and surveyed the crowded room. I was on the small stage playing guitar, singing a little Elvis. “My Way” was pretty well-received around here, despite the translation issues, so most of the room sung along, having heard the lyrics a dozen times.

Durg’un nodded to Misk in the corner, careful not to make any sudden movements.

Misk paused and then nodded back.

Durg’un had once said that Misk was one of the few human wizards that he didn’t want to fight. Physically, Durg’un would win ten out of ten engagements, but magically, Misk was more than his equal. If they hadn’t known each other before Misk arrived, there might have been serious problems.

Seeing Misk had no problem with him being there, unannounced, Durg’un smiled ear to ear. “The forge is finished,” he shouted, drowning out my singing. “Tonight we drink! Ale is on me!” He tossed a pouch over the crowd’s heads towards Gretel to the sound of cheering and nodded to me that he needed to talk.

With the forge finished, there would be fewer reasons for the dwarves to come above ground. The nightly excursions Durg’un and I had put up with as the dwarves broke away from their work lines would become a thing of the past. We’d still have to stand watch for danger, but it would only be one or two a night instead of what was now dozens.

I finished the song, though no one was paying attention, too busy clamouring at the bar for free drinks. Wendell had caught, opened, and then dropped the pouch, spilling gold across the counter. Gretel was now pulling him back by his collar as he tried to drink directly from a tap, loudly proclaiming the barrel as his.

I stepped off the stage, unnoticed in the mayhem, and made my way over to the entrance. I dropped my voice down low as I put my back against the wall. “Torvac and Misk are ready to cover you while your people are celebrating.”

Durg’un shook his head, smiling, amused by the mayhem he’d caused. “I’m not here for that.”

“What are you here for, then?”

He lowered his voice and scowled. “You’ve been invited to join in on the festivities.”

I frowned, not liking his tone. “Why?”

“Politics. The debate over the forge is getting more heated. Many don’t like the idea of a forge being outside our territory, even if it is still owned and run by dwarves. Some see it as a step too far from tradition. A few of their number have convinced the faction that are comfortable with it being here that you should be at the opening celebration, because the forge is built below your land. If you were a dwarf, your presence would be mandatory. Those idiots took what they said and accepted it and now believe you should be there. However, if you are there, it will just make the traditionalists angrier, strengthening those with weaker resolve.”

“So I piss off the faction who doesn’t like me if I go, and I piss off the one I want to like me if I don’t go. Can I politely decline?”

“No.”

I must have been getting too used to politics, because an idea immediately came to me. “Can I be there without being there? I can sit at a table on the land above the forge.”

Durg’un grinned. “That might work.”

* * *

A few hours later, I lounged alone, propped up on a collection of furs and silk cushions in the northeastern corner of my farm. Durg’un had organised hundreds of dwarves to quickly construct an elaborate, granite gazebo on the land directly above the heart of the forge. So, I was far from the entrance to dwarven tunnels, but as close to the forge as I could physically be without going underground. A location we were hoping wouldn’t upset either party.

The dwarves had given me a feast on an enchanted marble table covered in intricate carvings so fine and detailed that you could count the hairs on the carved dwarves’ beards. The enchantments kept all the perfect-quality food fresh, so nothing cooled or coagulated, leaving the night air filled with a hundred delectable scents, allowing me to eat at my leisure.

I placed a morsel of perfect-quality mushroom in my mouth, releasing another groan of delight, as my normally flat stomach protruded out like I’d swallowed a soccer ball.

Every bite of my meal was utterly divine. Meat fell off the bone, melting on my tongue, releasing flavours I didn’t know were possible. There were a dozen different mushroom dishes that all had unique tastes and textures. And the rice…oh, the rice…I now understood why the dwarves were crazy about it. Mixed with the mushrooms and meat, it was too delicious to adequately describe.

I couldn’t stop gorging.

I was long past the point where I couldn’t eat anymore and far into the territory where if I moved more than a few inches, I’d barf. I didn’t dare pat my stomach with satisfaction. I just sat still and let it digest to make room for another mouthful.

I didn’t usually treat an all-you-can-eat buffet like a challenge, but I never knew food could be this good.

I gave another happy groan and smiled, wriggling to make myself more comfortable between the cushions.

I could get used to this.

That thought played through my head for several seconds as an idle indulgence, but slowly transitioned into something more tangent.

Did I want to get used to this?

Did I want to waste a farmer’s monthly pay each meal, indulging in food?

…

I did.

That thought surprised me. I was so used to just getting by that I didn’t like to be frivolous with money. I wasn’t a Scrooge by any standards, but I wasn’t wasteful, and spending this sort of money on a meal was.

For some reason, I didn’t care anymore.

That thought concerned me, and I started to dwell on it. No, it wasn’t that I didn’t care. It was that I was tired of being frugal. I was tired of throwing money at everyone but me.

Yes, I owned expensive clothing, blessings, and all sorts of other items, but those purchases were always a means to an end. There was a practical application to justify the expenditure. I had to look respectable for people to take me seriously. I had to be tough enough to survive running from the giant. I had to buy the more expensive promotion crystals in case someone discovered their purpose.

Every time I spent money on myself, I had to justify it, like I didn’t deserve the money I was spending on myself.

I froze.

Was that really how I felt? Did I think I didn’t deserve what I had? I thought about that for several minutes, letting the food settle.

My sister had taken a short psychology course while she was in college. I had a memory of her saying the entire course would have been a waste of time if she didn’t learn an exercise her teacher picked up from a writing course. Writers apparently used the exercise to find their character’s inner motivations, but it worked just as well for people when done correctly.

I’d been watching a gameplay video at the time and only half-listening to her explain it to me, but that half-listening was enough for me to remember every word.

The exercise involved pretending to be two people: a merciless interviewer, and a brutally honest and courageous version of yourself.

The interviewer started off by asking you a simple question, such as, “Why don’t you feel like you deserve to spend money on yourself?”

And then the more honest and courageous version of you would answer truthfully, in a way that made you feel vulnerable. A way that made you feel uncomfortable with its honesty. That was the hard part. The truth wasn’t meant to make you feel good. If it did, you were doing it wrong.

I thought about the question.

“Because I’m pathetic.” I didn’t even feel a twinge as I said the words, so that wasn’t the reason I didn’t feel like I deserved to spend money on myself.

Every time the merciless interviewer got a false answer, they were meant to ask again, but get more direct and personal.

I gave it a try, talking to myself. “Arnold, you’ve created an entirely new way of generating experience for one of the classes that has the most trouble. You’re far from pathetic, so why don’t you feel you deserve to spend money on yourself?”

Those words came out a little harsher than I’d intended, but that was what the interviewer was supposed to do, and I was getting into the spirit of it now.

This time I really thought about it. And I quickly admitted to myself that I honestly did feel like I deserved what I had. I didn’t think I was a super genius or anything. I have a definite advantage over the locals, but I’d risked my life multiple times for what I’d created and what it earned me.

Well, maybe not the casino winnings. That was just a plain unfair advantage, but I didn’t feel bad about it. Casinos were designed to take your money. Those games weren’t fair, so screw them.

I tried another truth, seeing if it fit. “Because I’m afraid I’ll like it. Because I’m afraid that if I let myself be too self-indulgent, I’ll turn into the self-centred asshole I don’t want to be.” There was a twinge this time, an uncomfortable feeling that I was getting too real with myself.

But the interviewer was merciless. “That’s a good reason to restrict your spending. It’s not a reason to feel like you don’t deserve to spend money on yourself. Why can’t you give me an honest answer?”

The moment I finished playing the part of the interviewer, the next words whispered from me without me really thinking about them. “It’s not that I don’t think I deserve to spend money on myself,” I said, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “It’s that I’m afraid to.”

“Why are you afraid to spend money on yourself?”

“Because I’m afraid of what money can buy. There are thousands of new indulgences that I can try here, thousands of different experiences to discover, but I can’t share any of them with the people I care about back home. I’m afraid if these experiences make me happy, I’ll want to find someone new to share them with. I know my family would want me to move on and be happy, but I’m terrified to. This world scares me. There are monsters and madmen, and I’m not strong enough to pull myself together if I make a new life here and I lose it all again.”

As the words tumbled from me, I felt vulnerable. No part of me was comfortable with what I said. But no part of me denied it. And now that it was out in the open, it scared me more than when I was repressing it.

For the first time since coming out here, I was happy I was alone.

I searched my memory for the next step, but in my memory, this was the point where mum called Sophie into the kitchen, and her voice became muffled.

“Shit.”

What the hell was I going to do now?

As the seconds ticked by, I slowly forced away my fear. I’d admitted the truth to myself. I was afraid of making a new life, a happy life, because I couldn’t bear going through losing my family again.

I was probably intentionally sabotaging my happiness to protect how fragile I was. Ranic’s conversation inevitably came to mind when I realised that.

I’d been struggling to find a direction for my life for over half a year. The answer continued to elude me. Even a proper hint of an answer eluded me. Was this the reason? Was I so busy getting in my own way, too afraid to start a new life and lose it again, that I couldn’t think about the future I wanted?

Did the future I want scare me?

The way I felt told me it did.

I feared being happy. I feared having too many friends. I was terrified of having a family I could lose.

I was afraid of living.

Living might end with everyone being taken from me, because that’s what happened before.

I didn’t want to experience that sort of loss and pain again. Ranic knew that. The old man had read me like a book. He’d practically told me that what I feared most was going to repeat itself. That I was going to outlive everyone I cared about. He’d been trying to prepare me for it, trying to give me something that I could devote myself to that would let me survive past that point.

But nothing in this world, no matter how wonderful, let me forget what I’d lost to be here. So how was I supposed to find what I needed to devote myself to when it happened again if I couldn’t find something to do it now?

Why couldn’t there be an easy answer?

STEP 40

DEALING WITH A CRISIS

Jeremby and his party ran down the road, heading for the village, herding the terrified operators towards safety, slowly growing smaller as the distance grew. Everything about the seventh wave had been business as usual until Durg’un blew his horn, sounding a full retreat.

A cobraki knot was coming, numbering in the thousands. The serpentine deep dwellers were creatures of nightmares for regular people, and a big enough threat for the dwarves to reinforce their lines.

Torvac shook his head, lightning illuminating his face, as he watched them retreat. “They are too slow, Friend Arnold. The forerunners of the knot will catch them.” He looked to the nearest manual barn and placed his hand on my shoulder, undoing my Cloak of Monster Taunting. “Friend Arnold, Torvac can promise a glorious death and a chance for Arnold’s people to reach safety if Arnold comes with Torvac.”

I knew he wasn’t joking. There was a subtle shift in his tone, which told me this was serious. The fact that he’d been told to come here and abandon defending the west side reinforced this.

I stared at Lenlin and Jeremby’s retreating forms, worried for them. “I can’t bait cobraki. They’re too fast, even for me. It would be suicide to try.”

“Torvac will be bait,” he said, throwing my cloak over his shoulders. “Torvac only needs Friend Arnold to activate the traps in the barn, so Torvac is not overwhelmed.”

That wasn’t nearly as suicidal. “Will you get me out?”

“No. Torvac cannot cover Arnold’s retreat and stop them from reaching your people.”

There were twenty-four operators with Jeremby’s party. “Are you sure this will save them?”

“Is best chance.”

In life, there is the right thing to do, and then there’s what you’re capable of doing. Some people can jump on a grenade. Some people can’t. Most of the time those that can’t still know that jumping on the grenade was the right thing to do. Without my charisma, I wouldn’t have been able to do the right thing.

I forced a false grin onto my face as I pushed down my self-preservation instincts, channelling my inner Klingon. “It is a good day to die.” I met Torvac’s gaze. “What do you need me to do?”

A prompt appeared.

Your relationship with Torvac has improved from Friend to Ally. As your Ally, Torvac can be relied upon to keep your secrets and help you when you are in trouble. Your problems are his problems.

I immediately dismissed the prompt, clearing my line of sight.

“Follow.” Torvac tugged my shoulder to get me running, and we shot across the grass towards the nearest barn. “Torvac will draw the cobraki in and fight inside the manual barn, confining their movements and speed. Try to use traps to keep them from clustering and overwhelming Torvac.”

We reached the back of the manual barn as Torvac finished giving instructions.

Without explaining what he was doing, he picked me up and tossed me towards the second story hayloft door that the operators had used to escape. I watched the hayloft approach, and I somehow managed to land on my feet, only stumbling a few steps.

I pivoted to swear at him but saw only empty space below. He was already gone, likely heading towards The Wild Woods to intercept the first cobraki to arrive.

I put my thoughts for what might happen to me out of my head, and I raced for the escape hatch, boots thundering across the floorboards. I dropped into the reinforced control room to save time, letting my constitution-toughened body take the shock through my knees and thighs.

I glanced out the viewing window, counting the dead monsters, to guess how many traps had been triggered. I then picked up the metal bar with an L at the end from the weapons rack and inserted it into the hole in the granite paver in the corner. I turned the metal rod in what was essentially a stone manhole and lifted, opening the panic room.

Obviously, it wasn’t actually a panic room. A panic room wasn’t easy to build. It was, however, a narrow shaft, surrounded by concentrated granite, with holes in the wall near the top into which I could place two-inch-thick, metal rods, restricting the size of the shaft. Halfway down, there was an opening to an alcove where you could hide out of sight, making the simple space surprisingly secure.

Pavatin had added these to the designs when he’d started making improvements to the new barns, and I’d liked them so much I’d added them to the existing ones. The narrowness of the shaft was the room’s main defence. If something could get through the small gap, I was screwed, but there weren’t many monsters that could.

A cobraki could, though.

I forced that thought out of my head.

What would happen would happen.

Once my only escape plan was secured, I turned my attention back to the barn entrance, watching the building shake in time with the thunder as the storm grew stronger. Misk was floating somewhere in the clouds, manipulating the weather with magic to conjure a storm that would make it easier for him to hurl lightning at the cobraki. It was his job to thin their numbers before they reached Durg’un.

Torvac blurred into the barn unannounced, appearing inside the entrance.

He slammed his foot down on the inner edge of the trapdoor, forcing it to open, causing it to spin. He caught the trapdoor with one hand, stopping it, before yanking hard to snap the entire trapdoor off its housing. He then threw it from the barn and leapt backwards, flipping midair to jump off the roof so he could land halfway inside the barn.

As he landed on the ground, his armour let off a purple flash, surrounding him in a magical barrier, causing my cloak to flutter violently.

“Is okay to be impressed,” he shouted at me, having somehow drawn both his swords during the flip.

I grinned. “Misk doesn’t feel the need to show-boat. Are you compensating for something?”

“Yes. Is obvious. Misk make entire storm. All Torvac has is pointy sticks.”

I laughed, enjoying what might be one of the last moments of my life.

A wall of black, serpentine bodies came through the entrance and nose-dived into the hole, assured of their own indestructibility. Others slithered around the edges of the pit, choosing the shorter path to their target.

Monsters had an intrinsic ability to sense the strength of those around. Trolls wouldn’t come within a mile of Torvac, so the fact that the wave of black bodies rushed towards him without slowing, moving too fast for me to follow, pretty much told you what we were dealing with here.

I started pulling levers.

Swinging axes and spike walls came free. They probably would have done nothing, but Torvac began knocking cobraki towards the path of the traps, and using them to cover his back. The amount of blood and guts littering the barn doubled in seconds.

The Cobraki were a type of snake monstrosity, which ranged in size from the largest anaconda you ever heard of to an ancient titanoboa. If you could match the cobraki’s speed, it wasn’t any more dangerous than a low-level, armoured dwarf. The problem was you had to match its speed, and few were capable of doing that.

The two sides continued to get closer to me as I triggered trap after trap. About fifteen seconds in, I realised that Torvac was triggering automatic traps while he fought, timing his steps to cause more death. I didn’t see him do it, because most of his actions were a blur, but the automatic traps were even more effective than the ones I was triggering.

I’d never felt so useless in one of my barns. All I could do was wait for the moment a trap reset and pull the lever again. Timing my actions to help him was beyond me.

A minute into the onslaught, Salem leapt into my control room from the door above. He landed on the control panel, peering through the viewing window.

“Your timing is atrocious. You’re barely assisting him. Follow my instructions. L3 2, L3 7, L3 11, L3 3.”

I changed what I was doing, pulling the levers as he instructed. We’d developed the shorthand for teaching people which lever belonged to which section, never imagining we would need to use it for this.

“Arnold, duck!” Torvac roared.

Salem and I dropped to the floor. I felt something pass above me, ruffling my clothes, before it slammed into the concentrated granite above me. There was a violent crack, and then the barn went silent.

“Reset!” Torvac shouted.

I shot to my feet, seeing the clean, glowing, red line cut into the concentrated granite around me, before looking out the viewing window. Everything inside the barn was dead or dying, cut into at least two pieces. Torvac was already at the entrance fighting those outside.

“What the hell was that?”

“Some sort of area-based cleaving ability,” Salem said. “Though I’m not sure from which class he took it. It is quite powerful. I expect that will be his only use for the day.”

Light flooded me, seeping from my pores.

Well done, you have gained a level in the trapsmith skill.

Skill: Trapsmith

Level: 82

Effect:

+164% to your trapsmith ability

+164% to your effectiveness at locating and camouflaging traps.

Thankfully, Misk was throwing around so much lightning that the glow coming from the control room was barely noticeable. Attracting the cobraki’s attention was not high on my list of priorities.

I dismissed the prompt.

I’d been gaining crazy amounts of trapsmith experience from the operators running the barns, but it was still slow to level, as I only got 10% of what they did. It would be a while before I gained another level, so the risk of it happening again was marginal.

The next minute passed as the previous two had, with Torvac making his way further and further into the barn. Salem called out traps, and I pulled levers.

“Your friend is tiring,” Salem said.

“How can you tell?”

“He’s slowing down.”

Another ten seconds passed.

“Torvac must retreat, Friend Arnold. Torvac will tell Torvac’s children of Arnold’s bravery. Die well, my friend.”

The moment he said retreat, I grabbed the three metal rods I’d put to the side and leapt down the hole. Salem blurred ahead of me, shooting into the darkness before I could even react. I widened my legs, placing my feet against the narrow sides of the shaft to stop my descent, and slid the rods into their holes above me, shrinking the entrance further.

The rods could be removed as easily as they were put in, but it was Pavatin’s hope that whatever came after me wouldn’t be that smart. Once they were all in place, I reached through the bars and slid the stone manhole cover back into place, plunging the panic room into complete darkness, as something struck the control room door. I planted my hands against the cold, stony walls and wriggled down.

“Does he know about this space?” Salem asked.

“He does, but he likes to be dramatic. There is also a large chance they can reach us in here.”

My Darkvision didn’t work in pitch-black, and there wasn’t even a whisper of light with the covering in place. I was blind for the first time in a long time. So, I fumbled awkwardly as I reached the opening and clambered in beside Salem, trying not to kick him in a space that was smaller than a broom closet.

“You should have made a run for it,” I said. “I doubt these monsters can keep up with you.”

Something crashed above us.

Salem scoffed. “Someone needs to make sure you live through the night.”

I grinned, trying to ignore the sounds coming from above. “Are you going soft on me, Salem?”

“You’re my anchor in this world. If you perish, I’ll be expelled.”

“I’m your what?”

“My anchor. Try to listen.”

I paused, weighing his words, trying to understand the implications. “So, you’ve only been keeping me alive all this time, so you don’t die when I do?”

“I don’t share your mortal failings. I would, however, be heavily inconvenienced for a century or two, should you perish.”

I found where the blankets were stored and started shifting them so they were under me. The cold granite was already sucking the heat from my body. If I was going to die here, then I wanted to be comfortable when it happened.

“So, if you weren’t inconvenienced by my death, you would just abandon me to my fate?

“I certainly wouldn’t be here, if that is what you are asking.”

I found a pillow and stuck it under my head. “It wasn’t.”

“What do you want me to say? Do I enjoy your company? No. Am I amused by you? Occasionally. Do you surprise me? Sometimes. Are we friends? Not at all. We’re bound together for survival, Arnold. Were I to pass by and see you in distress, I would go out of my way to help you, but I would do so for anyone.”

Salem was an arrogant asshole, so I’d never really tried to be friends with him. I’d treated him with respect—well, as much respect as I could manage—but not friendship. We both only considered our arrangement temporary, so we’d tried not to get in each other’s way as much as possible.

There was also the other reason.

Salem hadn’t said it, but I’d worked out that he couldn’t refuse a direct command. Ever since then, I’d done my best not to abuse the power I had over him. He was basically a charmed slave, and it would be wrong for me to take advantage of that.

I sighed. “Would you like me to give your mark to someone else?”

“You don’t have the competence to do so,” Salem said.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

I felt Salem stare at me for several seconds. “I…I am not sure. This was never supposed to be permanent. It has already gone on longer than I assumed it would. I expected a year of hiding at the most, but it has been more than two. Having the demon lord walk this world unchecked for so long worries me. It is a being of corruption. It will be doing everything in its power to destroy this world. The fact that it has not shown itself is more terrifying than if it had.”

“You know I can’t help with any of that. But if you ever want to leave, I’ll find someone to help you do so. All you have to do is ask.”

“You wouldn’t survive your idiocy without me.”

“That wouldn’t be your problem.”

* * *

Reality always catches up with you. We were fortunate our fantasy lasted as long as it did. We held our first eight funerals in the rain, a week and a half after I climbed out of the panic room. With our heavy hitters distracted by the cobraki and the border barns out of action, the operators couldn’t hold the line.

People died, and they didn’t come back.

Isabelle and Sergeant Gurlad ran the service while the operators stood at attention. Everyone had put their work aside to attend, paying a last tribute to those who had kept them safe.

My gaze wandered over the operators and the wives, husbands, and children of the people who hadn’t returned. Every operator was now through their first threshold, even those who had only just finished their enlistment. Most of their spouses and children were just as high, having been handed experience after each wave.

No one else had left Blackwood.

No one had broken their contract.

They all remained despite the deaths, because this was where they wanted to be, because a few months of violence offered decades of growth. They weren’t strangers to death. They weren’t strangers to risking their lives. They went into each wave with their eyes open that it might be their last.

But it still astonished me that no one blamed me for the deaths.

Not even once.

It was something that I was thankful for, because it helped me not to blame myself. Risking death had been their choice, and though I was sorry these eight had to pay the price, ultimately, they were there because they chose to be.

Perhaps thinking like that made me a bad person.

But it let me sleep at night.

STEP 41

DON’T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY

The day Pavatin was ready to construct the farm manor, he had the royal builders drop everything else they were doing. He understood that the most important thing the royal builders could do to help us with the waves was to get the farm manor to a stage where I could bring all the former militia into the farm as farmhands. So, the job took priority.

In less than a month, the royal builders replaced the bare, concentrated granite surrounding Arnold’s Hill with expensive royal marble, building out the base and sides, so they could create the largest sculpture in the kingdom, finally answering the question of why Arnold’s Hill needed to be so big. To construct it so quickly, they had to purchase the materials from the system, as it was the only way to bring so much marble to Blackwood without waiting decades.

The bland, stone tower that we called Arnold’s Hill was gone. In its place was a five-hundred-foot, intricately carved, marble statue of the Sun Serpent.

The serpentine body coiled around a pillar with its massive head resting on top, looking out over The Wild Woods in the direction of the sunrise. Individually carved scales caught the sunlight, twinkling like they were covered in a million tiny stars. The scales were no less wondrous up close than when seen from afar, and seeing them each day did not dull their beauty.

It was glorious.

It looked like somewhere Conan the Barbarian would have to go to when he needed to fight a dark sorcerer. Everything about it screamed fantasy land.

I loved it.

Pavatin hid the ramp leading to the top amongst the Sun Serpent’s coils, replacing the compacted dirt and gravel ramp with intricately laid paving stones that made the road blend into the statue. There was a waist-high railing on the outer edge, and there were drains for when it rained, making it the sort of road you’d see at only the most exquisite homes.

They built my farm manor on top, the way I wanted. It was a two-storey building, with each floor being twice the size of an upper-middle-class family home in the suburbs. The design started like the other buildings in the village, but with several major differences. Where those buildings were going to be covered in mosaics, they covered this one in fine, detailed carvings, using semi-precious stones such as jade and jasper for colour. It was beautiful and expensive, yet there was a unique simplicity to its elaborateness that made it appear refined instead of ostentatious. The skill involved in creating that effect told you how much effort they put into the building.

The only feature that I didn’t like was that they’d paved around the manor, creating a sun to match the Sun Serpent vibe. The top of the hill was over a hundred yards across, and I wanted a back yard. A bit of lawn. Somewhere I could relax and have a barbeque. Instead, I got a beautiful, stone parking lot.

I didn’t complain about that to Pavatin as we stood beside the stage, in front of the manor, waiting for the crowd to recover from the gruelling walk to the top. What was done was done, and I’d agreed not to interfere.

There was still a lot of internal work to do, but the prerequisites were met for activating the building’s magical nexus, and that was what we were doing here today. Pavatin promised me I’d be able to use its abilities, even if I couldn’t live there yet.

I turned to see if Isabelle was ready.

She was still adjusting her new dress. She must have ordered it before she was pregnant, because she’d complained it was a little tight the entire walk up. She didn’t have a noticeable bump, but the dress was the kind that didn’t forgive you if you gained a pound or two. I didn’t comment on why that might have happened. I still had to pretend like I didn’t know she was pregnant.

Isabelle tugged at a few more places and then looked at the disgruntled crowd. “I think they’re ready.” She turned and gave me a smile. “I’ll make this quick.”

“Do it properly. Another fifteen minutes won’t cost us anything.”

“There’s little point to being more elaborate without Emily’s threshold boon.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. “Wait, is that why her speeches take so long?”

Isabelle laughed as she nodded. “And they’ll only get longer as the village grows larger.”

Great.

Isabelle climbed the steps to the stage, indicating for Pavatin and I to follow. The crowd of close to a thousand took notice, and a hush fell. Isabelle started her speech, talking to the crowd like an old pro.

Faces I didn’t recognise stared at me while I waited for my turn to speak.

A few of them likely belonged to the royal builders, but many of them wouldn’t be. They would be people I employed. People who depended on me. I didn’t have the time to meet everyone who worked for me anymore, let alone get to know them. But they were still people I was responsible for, people I needed to do right by.

I thought about that as Isabelle finished her speech, and I stepped forward to take over.

I activated Lowheart’s Lungs, increasing the distance my voice would carry. “Most of you don’t know me well,” I said, looking at the faces. “And that’s fine, because you know what this farm represents. It represents a chance for farmers to grow, to increase their skills and capabilities, to become the best in the kingdom. The farm manor behind me is there for them. It’s there to give those who will come here a chance to show what they can bring to Radian. So, I ask you all to help give them the chance they’ve never had. Because I’ll be trying to do the same for each of you.”

No one cheered, but they all smiled as they clapped. It was mostly out of politeness. My little speech really wasn’t that good. I probably should have practiced.

I nodded to Misk, standing at the edge of the crowd.

He grinned and raised his staff. There was a thunderous crack, and the air filled with thousands of glowing butterflies, making the crowd turn away and “ooh” with appreciation. The butterflies fluttered through the air, spreading over the crowd before rising and exploding in flashes of light that looked like fireworks.

While the crowd was distracted, Isabelle discreetly pocketed the experience she’d gained. The opening of a magical building was one of the few occasions where nobles like her could easily gain experience, so I hadn’t wanted to short-change her by activating the building without the fanfare.

When the excitement died down, I turned to Pavatin. “How about you give everyone the grand tour?” I asked loudly.

The crowd cheered.

Pavatin’s eyes widened. “But it’s not finished.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!”

I grinned. “So, we made all these people walk out here just to listen to a speech.”

“Booo!” the crowd called. Torvac’s booming voice was by far the loudest, causing anyone near him to jump.

Pavatin looked at the sea of faces and sighed. “Fine.” He pointed at a few of the builders and told them to give those who wanted to see inside a tour of the upper floors. Most of the older villagers immediately ignored the tour guides and started making their way over to take a look. Ava was in the lead, dragging her husband by the wrist.

Pavatin turned to Isabelle. “How long will it take you to begin the second stage of the integration?”

“My husband is doing it as we speak. The light show was the signal. You should receive a notification shortly. If you don’t need me, there are some people here I need to speak with.”

Pavatin said he didn’t, and Isabelle made her way off the stage and over to Kiln to talk.

Pavatin looked around, seemed to decide he didn’t want to go anywhere near so many people, and then turned back to me. “Do you have any questions about your new farm manor, Landlord Arnold?”

I had several, but I decided to start with the one he was most likely to answer. “Why did you turn the hill into a statue of the Sun Serpent?”

“I’m trying to cheat,” Pavatin said matter-of-factly. “Images of the Sun Serpent are known to give a higher boost to a building’s quality than regular artistic depictions, and I managed to have the entire carving classified as the building’s promenade. Having something so ostentatious will increase the building’s quality by an entire level.”

That answer was more open than I had come to expect from the man, so I decided to ask the question he’d continually refused to answer. “Will you tell me why you didn’t ask for my input now? You went to everyone I know, but never asked me a damn thing about what I wanted.”

Pavatin cleared his throat, nervously. “Magical buildings aren’t designed around wants. They’re designed around needs. They have a function to fulfil, and no matter how pretty they become, this comes first. If I asked you what you needed, you would have told me what you wanted. It would have been something like a nice place to play the guitar or somewhere to watch the sunset. You would have thought of it as a home, but this is as much a place of business as a house of scholars.”

“You could have told me that, and I would have changed how I answered you.”

Pavatin looked me in the eye. “Does your administrator Fitz know more about the day-to-day running of your businesses than you do?”

“Yes, technically.”

“And does your friend Jeric know more about the day-to-day running of your farm than you do?”

“I see where you are going, but you could have—”

“Does your friend Ranic know more about the training of your people than you do?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with my input.”

“This building represents the people under you as much as it represents you. It must service the needs of your obligations to them, and you don’t fully know what those obligations are. If you don’t fully know what those obligations are, then how can you tell me what’s needed?”

“But it’s my house! Don’t my needs matter for that, too?”

“Not really, beyond the broad strokes, unless something is exceptionally important. And if it’s that important, I can find out without having to ask you, because it will be obvious.”

Ava came sprinting out the front door, cackling and causing a commotion that drew our attention. “He built it!” She looked around, and her eyes landed on Isabelle. She ran towards her. “He actually built it,” she yelled again.

Isabelle and Kiln looked confused as Ava stopped in front of them and started talking in a low voice. A few seconds passed, and then they both burst out laughing. The three then dispersed, going to people they knew. Soon, those people were laughing too.

“That can’t be good,” I said.

“She must have found the sex dungeon,” Pavatin replied dryly. “I should have told someone to block the lower staircase.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ha ha, very funny. Who told you about it?”

“Everyone I interviewed,” Pavatin said, still using that same dry tone. “I even wrote to those who had left Blackwood, and every one of them wrote back saying it was a well-known fact you had a sex dungeon. Apparently, you were most distraught when your last one was destroyed by the giant. Your closest friends informed me that it was the main reason you seek revenge against it, why you won’t let the adventurers’ guild kill it, like any reasonable person would, offering your quest instead. After seeing you make your way through the unmarried women of the village, I realised how important your sexuality was to you, so included it in the design. It seemed like too important a part of your character to neglect, since you were so open about it.”

He was good. He almost had me believing him. “Nice try. Having Ava run out and pretend to tell everyone was a good touch, but you can’t expect me to believe the most skilled architect in the kingdom used his talents to build a sex dungeon.”

“I’ll admit I knew absolutely nothing about sex dungeons before coming here and gathering the information I needed was embarrassing, but…” His head snapped towards me, and he pretended to panic. “Wait! What do you mean, have Ava pretend to tell everyone?”

He was laying it on thick, but I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Everyone in the village knows I never had a sex dungeon. It was a panic room I built to hide from monsters that Brek thought I was going to use for nefarious purposes and Captain Wallis thought was a sex dungeon. It’s been two years and people are still making jokes about it. I’m completely over it.”

Pavatin gulped. “What about those who left the village? Did they know that this place was not, in fact, a sex dungeon?”

“Of course not. They left before people started taking my oath.”

Pavatin’s face went a bright red. “Noblewoman Isabelle! We must stop the second stage of integration! There has been a mistake!” He turned and ran for the stairs at the edge of the stage, but he tripped on the top step and fell on his face, skidding across the paving stones.

I winced and hurried to his side to help him up. Sure, he’d been trying to prank me, but that must have hurt. I leaned down to pick him up, as others came to help, and heard something that sent a chill through me.

Pavatin was sobbing.

“I was too late,” he moaned.

* * *

I stood in an open room that was the same size as the first floor of the manor. The walls were covered in carvings of people in different sexual positions, some in pairs, and others in groups. The ceiling was a giant mess of interwoven bodies, like an erotic Sistine Chapel, and it was all as beautiful as it was sexual in nature.

A large swimming pool filled the centre of the room, surrounded by statues of naked women pouring water into it. My gaze travelled further into the room, and I spotted golden cages of various designs. I began to frown as my gaze moved from the cage to a wall of leather whips. They weren’t the sort of whips you used for corporal punishment. Chains, shackles, ropes, all took up another section of the wall. Then I saw the damn sex swings.

I was dumbstruck.

I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but my eyes wouldn’t lie. I had a sex dungeon.

Everyone I knew from the village was walking through the room and commenting on the carvings, like it was a day at the freaking Louvre. They were all grinning like madmen, proud and amused by what they had done.

Gretel turned and spotted me across the room. Her grin grew and her chest shook as she held in her laughter long enough to say, “You remember when you told us you didn’t have a sex dungeon. Well, now you do.”

The room erupted in laughter.

I turned and grabbed Pavatin by the front of his suit, fighting heart palpitations. I could feel my face turning red, almost as red as his scraped and cut appearance. “What’s this room designated as?”

This was important.

“A sex dungeon,” he said weakly, tears still running down his bleeding cheeks.

The man was in utter misery.

I released him, dumbstruck.

Ava threw back her head, cackling as she stopped beside me, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “Your face.”

Brek finished laughing, wiping tears from his eyes, as he came over. “I told him you had a sex dungeon as a bit of a joke. I’ve been asking around. Apparently, everyone said something similar.”

Gretel stopped laughing long enough to say, “I know a few local unmarried ladies who would like to chat with you, Arnold.” She went back to laughing, holding her sides as she fought for breath. “You could hold a ball in here.”

Ava gave my shoulder a playful squeeze. “My husband and I are happy to house sit for you whenever you’re away.”

Her oldest daughter overheard her mother and turned to glare. “Eww.” Lenlin had his arm over her shoulder and was laughing with everyone else.

“This isn’t funny!” I shouted. “It’s going to grow bigger every time this place levels!”

Ava gave a throaty chuckle. “Dear, that’s where you are wrong. That is the funniest part. You’re going to have the largest sex dungeon in the kingdom.”

Pavatin gave a small chuckle. “And the highest quality. Oh dear, that is amusing. Terribly inappropriate, but funny. My greatest work includes a sex dungeon that wasn’t needed. I’m going to be remembered for this.” He finally lost it, bending at the waist as he roared with laughter, wiping away his tears, half-insane.

I stared at all the laughing faces and started to see the funny side. I mean, if it wasn’t happening to me, this would be hilarious. A single weak chuckle escaped me, and then I lost it, too.

It was utterly ridiculous.

I had a sex dungeon a third the size of my house, and I couldn’t get rid of it. Not ever, or I would lose the building’s active status.

Great, heaving waves of laughter ran through me.

It took me and everyone else a few minutes to calm down, and then Pavatin took us on the tour. Every time he explained what something was and how it was used, everyone erupted in laughter. He’d had to do quite a bit of research to understand what was required and was now quite the expert.

It was so ridiculous.

Halfway through the tour, when everyone was taking turns trying the different sex swings, Jeric walked into the room and collapsed with laughter. The moment he started, everyone joined in.

When the tour was over, Pavatin gathered everyone together. “I overheard Arnold speaking with his administrator one morning about a device from his world and, as a surprise, I tried to include it. Arnold, please clap once.”

I frowned, but did as he said. The magical, crystal lights went out.

“Now clap twice.” I could barely make out the words through Pavatin’s laughter.

I clapped twice. Fires came to life in the fireplaces, and flaming torches appeared on the walls. The entire room looked like the highest-quality S&M film set ever devised by the human imagination.

Everyone started guffawing again.

* * *

When everybody had had their fun, which was a few hours later, Pavatin cleared the room, so only he, Isabelle, Jeric, Ranic, and I were present. Pavatin hadn’t apologised for building a sex dungeon in my house. Despite his laughter, he was devastated. He was sure the finished building would lose a level of quality because of this blunder. The fact I’d become a sage would save him from failing in a technical sense, but he’d still failed in his eyes.

As the last person headed up the stairs, Pavatin motioned for us to follow him. “Since the nature of this room was anything but discreet, I took the liberty of disguising the entrance to the vault.”

He led us halfway down the room to one of the tamer lesbian carvings and pressed the belly button of the figure on the right. There was an audible click, and then he pressed his hand against the carving and a door swung in.

I grinned. “That’s awesome.”

Pavatin smiled. “I thought so.”

A winding staircase led us further under the manor to a vault door identical to the one under Emily’s manor. Isabelle stepped forward and placed her hand against the same sigil that Jeric always did, and the door lit up. The internal mechanisms rotated, unlocking the door, and it swung open.

The room was identical to the vault of every magical building I’d ever been in. A bowl filled with illusion sand with a railing around it took up the middle of the room, and there were several filing cabinets for important documents.

Pavatin stepped past Isabelle and stopped in front of the farm manor’s interface. He began making gestures, causing the illusion sand to change shape and become active. Until the building was complete, he was the only one who could interact with it, but he couldn’t get into the room without Isabelle.

He spent a few minutes checking everything over and then looked up. “Which functions do you need immediately, and which can wait? You have significantly more access than I would expect before the building’s completed, even with your large population. It’s almost like the village is trying to force it to use magic.”

Jeric stood behind him, watching what he was doing. “It’s probably the giant. Somehow, the village is siphoning magic from it.”

Pavatin scowled. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” He made several gestures, muttering to himself. “Well, everything seems to be behaving normally, despite the oddity.”

Ranic stopped beside him. “Can you extend Arnold’s ability to allow extra farmers under him to his subordinates?”

Pavatin made several gestures, then nodded. “Yes. I can even link in his manor ring, though I won’t be doing so.”

That was annoying, but understandable.

A manor ring was a neat, little magical item that would link me to my farm manor. It would give me access to most of the interface’s functions anywhere I went and allow my boon to gather experience from my farm even when I wasn’t there. However, without the skill to use it properly, giving it to me could end in disaster. I might not be able to instantly rebuild a building with it, but I’d been told I could destroy them.

Ranic grew interested. “Can you integrate the forests and quarry?”

Pavatin made several gestures. “I can do the forests, but not the quarry, which is odd, but you lack the farming points for any of them.”

Ranic’s gaze snapped towards me.

“I think I hear someone calling my name,” I said, nervously. “I better go check on that.”

I turned and started running up the stairs.

“Arnold. Arnold!”

STEP 42

LYING TENDS TO HURT YOU IN THE END

Having the farm manor was the difference between night and day. It was like flipping the switch and turning on a light. It made everyone come alive. The operators no longer only travelled to the village when they had to. With the farm upgrades I’d purchased, the few miles to the village became a short stroll, and all of them were taking advantage, visiting the stores more often, and causing an actual economy to grow.

With the royal builders no longer completely distracted by building the farm manor, Blackwood expanded with each passing day. The month they spent working on the farm manor gave their suppliers the time they needed to deliver the concentrated granite, allowing the Royal Builders to once again build as quickly as they liked. You could finally see what Blackwood was becoming, and it was as beautiful as Pavatin had promised.

With the sewer system finished, the royal builders had started working on the storm drains under the roads and the multi-level basement storage areas that would be under every building, giving shelter to those who were tired of living in tents. The builders were skipping the detail stage in favour of getting actual buildings completed, so plain structures quickly climbed towards the sky.

While they turned Blackwood into somewhere you would want to live, I placed the last tomato into the basket and turned my hand over, feeling the familiar tingle, as an excited smile transformed my face.

You have grown an exceptional crop of tomatoes, earning 4 farmer experience.

Would you like to absorb this experience?

Yes/No?

I selected, no, and opened up my promotion interface.

Congratulations, you have reached level 10 and advanced your farmer class. You may now select your first promotion from the list. Remember, you can only select one promotion, and all decisions are final.

Horticultural Care- Crops that grow on your farm are 5% less affected by pests and disease.

Quality Fertilizer- Crops that grow on your farm require 5% less fertilizer.

Special Promotion requirements met: Reach level ten using experience predominately gained from defending your farm from monsters.

Monster Bane- Monsters are 10% less likely to enter your farm.

Special Promotion requirements met: Master your farmer interface, using it to its full potential.

Discerning Eye I- Expand the capabilities of your farmer interface.

Pride filled me as I selected the new promotion option and hit, Yes.

I’d done it.

I’d unlocked the first of the four special promotions that I needed. It had taken me months, but I’d finished. I was far from the best there was, but I was good enough that other farmers wouldn’t look at me with pity.

Congratulations, you have selected Discerning Eye I. To increase the level of this promotion, you must use one farming promotion crystal.

Ranic chuckled as I read the prompt. “Congratulations, Arnold. I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate, but first let’s get that promotion to a point where it’s helpful.” He reached into his robes and tossed me the small pouch I’d given him to hold.

I caught the pouch and dumped the rare green spherical promotion crystals onto my palm.

A prompt appeared.

You have found 10 rare farmer promotion crystals. Would you like to use them to level your farmer promotions?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes.

You have 10 farmer promotion crystals available.

I watched the interface overlaying the field around me change as I leveled the promotion. There were about two dozen spots highlighted in red before I started, and there were more than a hundred by the time I finished. “Damn, that’s a bit of a difference.”

Ranic smiled happily. “It certainly is. Now, take the afternoon off. We’ll start trying for your second promotion tomorrow.”

* * *

The following afternoon, Ranic and I headed west, walking beside the road to Brinkdale, enjoying the cool breeze and clear blue skies. Brek and his team were now constructing automated barns out here, to capture some of the low-level beasts and monsters that came this way, so wagons loaded with local goods passed us every few minutes.

Ranic was in a surprisingly good mood, whistling cheerfully and watching the horizon with a look of contentment.

“Why are you so happy?” I asked.

His smile grew. “I’ve managed to organise everything, so your next promotion will only take you a few weeks to acquire.”

A twitter of excitement went through me. “You said months, in the past.”

He grinned at me. “That was months without assistance, but your farmer network fixed that issue. With Landbaron Varine’s help and his knowledge of his herd, you’ll have your next promotion within a fortnight.”

My excitement grew, leaving me smiling with joy. Anything that ultimately lessened how much I needed to farm was welcome. “Is he here already?”

The old farmer had spent over a month discussing my proposal with his family, and then several weeks more, picking someone he thought was appropriate to inherit. But he eventually agreed to join my network.

Ranic nodded. “He arrived with his herd last week. He has everything ready for us to start.”

We turned off the main road, just outside the village’s commercial zone, and took the path towards a fortress-resembling barn that hadn’t been there last week. It wasn’t ostentatious, which meant Brek and his team must have built it, but it was made from much larger blocks of concentrated granite than they usually used.

“What’s with these walls?” I asked as we walked along the side of the barn to the entrance.

“He wanted more security for his herd.”

“Darn right I did,” Landbaron Varine muttered, as we rounded the corner.

The old farmer sat on a chair out front, with his feet up on a stool. He had a pipe in his mouth and was in the process of sharpening the blade of a shovel. He was wearing the same farmer’s overalls as I was, but his skin held a much deeper tan, making it look like old leather.

I walked over to the old farmer and held out my hand, smiling. “It’s good to see you again.”

Varine put aside his work long enough to shake and then went back to sharpening the shovel.

I looked around, trying to understand the situation. There wasn’t much to see with the barn doors closed. “What will we be doing here?”

“You’ll be milking goats,” Ranic said, patting me on the back. “Specifically, male goats. Their unique nature makes them perfect for cheating the system and gaining the agricultural version of the discerning eye promotion, so long as you have a skilled professional who already knows their individual dispositions and health problems. With Landbaron Varine’s help, this will be a simple matter.”

I looked towards the barn door. It was a big barn. Not the kind of place that would only hold a few goats.

“How many goats did you bring?”

“I was told to bring all I had,” Varine replied, checking the edge on his shovel with the stubble on his chin, shaving it clean. He nodded to the barn. “There are 287 of my boys in there.”

I turned to Ranic. “This is because I didn’t tell you I spent the farming points, isn’t it?”

Ranic gave me a neutral expression, but his eyes crinkled with laughter. “I don’t know what you mean.”

STEP 43

WHITE LIES HAVE CONSEQUENCES, TOO

No one ever said trying to start an entire new trapsmithing industry was going to be easy, but it was a lot harder than I imagined. I couldn’t be everywhere I needed to be, so my life was scheduled to the minute. With my night entirely booked by Durg’un and the need to sleep, there weren’t enough hours in the day. I was always busy literally running from one task to another. So, I only took one entire afternoon off over the month, and I only did that because Jeric invited me to a party.

Hamlin met me at the door and rolled his eyes. “You’ve got soil on your cheek, sir.”

Music came through the door, forcing us both to speak up.

“No, I don’t.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I bathe, Hamlin.”

“Doing so once a month is nothing to be proud of, sir.”

I snorted. “Are you ever going to stop being mad at me for using the quiet room?”

“I’ll stop being ‘mad,’ as you put it, when you have slept with half the village, which should only be a month or so at your rate.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“I will bet you my year’s wages that the number of women you have slept with in the past month is closer to the number of baths you have taken than to zero.”

I started counting backward. There was the seamstress, the hairdresser, the bard, the blacksmith, and the other blacksmith…I quickly decided not to take him up on his bet. “Look, what I do in my spare time is none of your business.”

“Maybe you should keep it private, then. That way, royal architects don’t waste their time building you sex dungeons.”

Hamlin didn’t laugh; he just smirked.

Somehow, that was worse.

He stepped back from the door, knowing he had won this round with bonus points. I’d walked right into that comment, so I gave him the satisfaction of seeing me scowl at him as I entered.

Most of the old village was inside. People Jeric and Isabelle had known for decades. There was laughing, music, and the bard I’d slept with last week, who I later realised was after my money, which made me immediately change rooms. There was food and drinks and a relaxed atmosphere. People were chatting, playing games, and having fun.

A couple of hours went by, and then Hamlin had everyone gather near the parlour, where a large board covered in a sheet waited.

Jeric and Isabelle stood before the village, beaming.

Now was their moment.

All we had to do was fake our part to make it special for them.

Isabelle stepped forward. “We have invited you all here today, because we have a surprise for you.” She took her husband’s hand, as he beamed his happiness at the world. “I’m pregnant!”

Gasps flew in every direction. Several mouths dropped open. Hands clutched chests. Several people decided to open their eyelids and try to pop out their eyeballs. And there were a few too-quick “Congratulations!”

Ava’s performance was the most believable. It really looked like she didn’t know. I felt I’d earned myself a solid fourth place. But there was a big gap in believability between me and Adoya, who was fifth, who was one of the people trying to pop their eyeballs out.

It was far too easy to tell we all knew. Everyone looked around guiltily, realising how poor their performances were, and then turned to the happy couple to see how they would react.

Jeric burst out laughing first, and then Isabelle quickly joined in. Everyone gave a weak chuckle until Hamlin removed the sheet covering the board, and we all saw the words, “Who Told Who” at the top. There were a few hundred pieces of paper on them, with names and arrows pointing to other names.

It took a few seconds, but the crowd quickly began laughing as they understood they’d been had. Ranic started to clap, and soon a round of applause serenaded the happy couple.

Jeric grinned at the room. “Now, I promise you, this charade had a purpose beyond seeing how much we can trust you.”

“I’d hope so,” Ava said, blushing bright red, most likely because she had told everyone and more on Isabelle’s list. “Or I’m going to be in trouble.”

Everyone chuckled.

“My wife and I experienced the largest fight of our marriage when it came to naming Emily,” Jeric said. “So we decided to settle who gets to name this child with a game called ‘Who Told Who’. Whoever correctly guessed who shared our secret the most times may name this child.”

I looked at my name on the board. There were at least two dozen options going from it. It was nothing compared to Ava’s eighty or more, but it was still rather high.

An hour later, Jeric sat next to me, sipping brandy and scowling. “You only told Ranic. Just Ranic.”

I shrugged. “You asked me not to tell anyone.”

“Yet you told Ranic.”

“Are you upset because I told Ranic, or because I didn’t tell more people?”

“Yes.”

I chuckled. This was the first time I’d ever seen Jeric throw a tantrum when his family wasn’t involved, and it was highly amusing.

Jeric groaned again, not taking the loss well. “I hope it’s a boy. Isabelle has many wonderful qualities, but she has no sense in naming anything. She wanted to name Emily, Jeribelle, and I think she still likes the idea. That name is ridiculous.”

I screwed up my face. “Yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

STEP 44

HELPING OTHERS CAN HELP YOU, TOO

Increasing the number of automated and manual barns along the border to The Wild Woods had done a lot to stem the tide of monsters. I no longer struggled to find a working barn, and fewer and fewer mid-tier threats got past us to reach the second layer of defence.

So, I didn’t feel guilty about needing to rest or take a break anymore.

I refilled Durg’un’s tankards with Ririon’s sour mushroom stout as I bit into a piece of tough apple, coated in honey and crushed nuts. The view from the top of the Sun Serpent statue was amazing. You could see the monsters coming from all directions.

There was only a trickle appearing from the west. The villages and towns in that direction massively lowered the number of monsters, and the repeated waves had drawn out the rest.

It was entirely different to the north, south, and east. Monsters continued to pour in, seemingly unaffected by the constant death. The Monsters Compendium said that monsters outnumbered humans a million to one, but I hadn’t really taken that in.

Now, I did.

What was happening here each week could go on indefinitely.

A flash appeared near the reservoir as Misk incinerated a group of trolls with lightning, illuminating the surrounding landscape. Other flashes occurred near the dwarven camp as their wizards destroyed any monster that came near their line.

Now that all the operators had access to my farm upgrades and could all gain experience from killing monsters, they were even more enthusiastic. They were taking risks I didn’t want them to take, but they were also receiving the rewards from it. Single trolls and ogres, which had been previously left to Misk, were now swarmed and riddled with crossbow bolts and arrows, dying due to the number of attacks, not because of their power.

Everyone fought like a well-oiled machine, and nothing got through.

“It’s almost wasteful to kill it,” Durg’un said.

“Kill what?”

“The village-eater. Having it trapped like this presents a unique opportunity to gain experience. More than half the trouble of leveling comes from tracking the monsters you need to kill, but here, that isn’t a problem.”

That had occurred to me more than once or twice. Jeric even used it in our negotiations with Sergeant Gurlad, when we were sorting out the new experience share ratios for the operators, explaining why giving them only 10% was more than fair now that we had the farm manor. Gurlad countered that with his old standby they could leave anytime they wanted, which we met with our argument that this was our main problem. The operators were leveling so quickly that there was no incentive to stay when the waves were over.

Gurlad saw our point, but didn’t back down, forcing us to come up with two offers. Those that wanted everything to stay as it was would receive 10%, but those who were willing to sign on for a decade like the militia would receive 20%.

We were as shocked as Gurlad when 90% turned up the next morning demanding contracts, and shocked again, when the rest turned up the following week demanding the same.

“Is that the reason your people are taking so long to complete their projects and level the forge?”

Durg’un chuckled, nodding his head, amused. “Even kings can’t make people work against their interests. Especially if those people were corrupt enough to participate in what King Grorion planned. They’ll finish eventually, but it’s going to be several months late.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Durg’un snorted and then tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth. “I have Ririon’s sour mushroom stout to drink, and each day, my debt shrinks. What is there to be bothered about? Now that my people can’t easily come to the surface, this is a nice bit of rest that is long overdue.” He turned towards The Wild Woods and frowned. “Back to work, I guess. You might want to get back down there. Things are about to get busy again.”

* * *

“182, stop trying to bite 107, and get over here,” I said to the disagreeable goat.

182 gave me a disgusted look, but did as I said, leaving the other member of the herd alone so he could be milked. The goat was as ornery as they come. And once he was close enough, he immediately tried to bite me. But I was wise to his temperament. I moved my hand out of the way, watching his teeth miss by inches, and gave his shoulder a good shove.

He bleated at me indignantly, causing every other goat to do the same. The goatish barrage echoed through the barn, loud enough to give me a headache. 182 went in for a second bite and received another shove.

I glared at the goat. “You’re such an asshole. No one else in your herd gives me this sort of attitude.” I turned to Varine. “I’m upping my offer. I’ll give you five crowns for him.”

Varine sat there smirking, watching my actions with careful consideration. “He’s the finest breeding goat I ever raised, even if he is the most difficult. His children produce 18% more milk than my second best, and even if you offered me his proper value, I wouldn’t sell him to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going to eat him, which is an utter waste of his bloodline, and more than a little insulting.”

I continued to glare at the goat. “You are so lucky he likes you.”

Ranic chuckled, enjoying my misery.

News of my bizarre training had quickly spread through the village, by some unknown means, giving everyone a new way to tease me. Anytime I did anything for a male villager, no matter how small the task, I received a comment like, “You sure know how to treat a man, Arnold”. It normally wasn’t one person saying it, either, but everyone around me.

It was pretty funny.

My overlay appeared as I started checking 182. Something was off. He was usually the epitome of perfect health, having arrived in that condition, but my overlay suggested there was a problem by showing a less vibrant shade of blue.

I started looking for tick bites and fleas, but didn’t find any. However, I was able to use the interface to narrow down the issue to something affecting his shoulder. It took me narrowly avoiding several bites to finally work out what it was.

He had a muscle cramp.

I spent the next ten minutes trying to avoid being attacked while I massaged a freaking goat, but that frustration disappeared as I finished milking him, and Varine patted me on the shoulder.

“You did it.”

“Did what?”

“You unlocked the promotion.”

Within a second, I had my interface open.

Congratulations, you have reached level 20 and advanced your Farmer class. You may now select your second promotion from the list. Remember, you can only select one promotion, and all decisions are final.

Animal Husbandry- Animals that grow on your farm are 5% less affected by pests and disease.

Animal Fertilizer- Animals that grow on your farm produce 5% more fertilizer.

Special promotion requirements met: Reach level 20 using experience predominately gained from defending your farm from monsters.

Special promotion: Monster Terror- Monsters are 10% more intimidated when on your farm.

Special Promotion requirements met: Master your farmer interface, using it to its full potential.

Discerning Eye II- Expand the capabilities of your farmer interface for agriculture.

I selected Discerning Eye II and watched as the overlay improved, smiling with pride at what I had accomplished.

Varine chuckled as he picked up his stool and pail, placing them beside me. “No time for slacking. The sun is up, and there is still a herd that needs milking.”

Ranic laughed at my expression.

Varine turned to him. “That includes you too, mister scholar. You’ve been making jokes at Arnold’s expense since I arrived, so it’s only fair you show him what someone with your skill is capable of. Ain’t nothing stopping you from helping, now that Arnold’s got his promotion, so don’t give me no excuses.”

I grinned gleefully at Ranic, ready to see him complain.

Ranic returned my grin, with a mature nod. “I suppose it is. A crown says I can do more work than both of you combined.”

“No bet,” we said together.

* * *

The following day, Ranic wanted to talk, and he wanted to do it at the orchards. So, I met him there after lunch and we took a tour, examining the progress that he’d made. There were now ten fields planted with tough apple trees. Each one was perfectly uniform, but all showed damage from the recent razor boar herd that had passed through.

“They’re going to take a few months to recover,” Ranic said, while examining the damage to the trunk of one of the trees. A razor boar had taken a bite out of it. You could see the teeth marks. “It will slow down our plans, but not by much.”

I’d leaned down to run my finger over the bite’s indent. It was rougher than it appeared. I glanced over my shoulder. “So, no more lessons for a while, then?”

Ranic smiled, knowing I was trying to get out of working on the farm again. “I didn’t say that. Helping the trees recover will improve your skills with the interface and make it easier for you to produce a perfect crop.”

“I thought I only needed to create an exceptional crop?”

“You do, but I’ve been meditating on my failures with Manson and Pel, and I believe I’ve worked out a way around it. I think I know how to walk someone of their skill level through producing a perfect crop now. But I don’t have the time to spare to try with them again, so I’m going to use you instead.”

I rolled my eyes. “Aren’t I beyond their level?”

Ranic raised an eyebrow at me. “What would give you that notion?”

“Perhaps the fact that I gained two special promotions.”

“Bah, don’t be ridiculous. Gaining those skills is like mastering two steps of a complex dance. You might know part of the performance, but without the rest, you’re still tapping your feet needlessly.”

I grinned at the old man. “Seriously, you went for a dance metaphor?”

He shrugged. “It was either that or say two branches don’t make a bush.”

I chuckled. That did sound kind of insulting. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“I’m concerned for Manson and Pel.”

I hadn’t heard any reason for him to be concerned. Now that the operators were trained, they were living comfortably while Manson recovered from his broken legs. “Why?”

“They’re aimless. They have no idea what to do with their life or wealth. Now they aren’t needed to operate the trap barns, they spend their days sitting around and drinking when they could be so much more. They just need someone they respect to encourage them. They need you to encourage them.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. They look up to you. They idolize you.”

I snorted. “No, they don’t.”

Ranic frowned at me. “How could they not, Arnold? You took them from struggling to find food to eat, to having more experience and money than they know what to do with. You taught them how to kill monsters without fear, and you carried Manson away from certain death. You’re their hero. And they need your help.”

“By encouraging them,” I said, seriously doubting his claims.

“Yesss, by encouraging them. The two of them have access to the great boon, and despite their change in circumstances, they’re still as devoted to each other as they have always been. They have everything they need to be in charge of a very successful farm one day. They just need someone to tell them they can achieve this.”

I paused, considering what he’d said. “They’d have to leave Blackwood. There is no space here for them to grow. They might not like that.”

Ranic sighed. “That needs to happen eventually, but not right away. Those two still lack a proper education, and if they’re going to have a real chance at success, they should be academy-trained, which means they have to know enough to get in.”

“You sure they need to go to the academy?”

“A farm is a business, and those two have less idea of how to spend money wisely than you do.”

Ranic and I walked as we discussed what I should do to help Manson and Pel. He showed me more of the damaged trees as he explained what awaited them. They really did have a bright future ahead of them. It was just a future outside of Blackwood.

The longer we talked, the more I understood why Ranic was concerned. If nothing changed, the two of them would eventually throw their money away and end up working for wages. It might take a few decades, but their lack of education would be their undoing. In some ways, it was like they’d won the lottery. And like most lottery winners, they were on a path where they would end up back to where they started if we didn’t help them.

So I went to see them the moment we finished our talk.

* * *

Shortly after making Manson and Pel my retainers, I’d given them a small log cabin to live in. It was a tiny, two-bedroom building, down a side street near the village square, next to a well that was easy for Brek to repair. The two of them had been more than happy with it when I gave it to them and hadn’t asked to change since.

I found them sitting out front, using the IKEA lawn furniture Kiln was making. They had a table between them and were playing Battleship. Manson still had his legs in splints after shattering his shins, so they were raised on a stool.

As I walked up, Pel spotted me and waved. “Hey, boss. What do you need?”

Manson chuckled as he looked over his shoulder. “Don’t say that. I like our new game-testing job.”

I grinned. So, that’s what Fitz had them doing.

Manson and Pel were only seventeen, and they were two of the least-attractive people in Blackwood. Manson was tall and skinny, with a long horse face and ratty, black hair. And Pel was a barrel-shaped girl with squashed features. But when you watched them look at each other, you forgot that. They loved each other with an intensity that you rarely saw, utterly accepting each other in every way, making you do the same.

“I don’t need anything,” I said. “I came to talk to you about your futures.”

Pel frowned. “I’ll get us something to drink.”

Manson leaned over and pulled out the chair next to him, moving his crutches aside, while Pel darted inside.

“Watch how you sit,” he said. “This one’s a bit rickety.”

I frowned and immediately started checking the chair, turning it over to try and find the reason behind its fault. I intended to start mass-producing the IKEA-style furniture at some point, because it wouldn’t take up much room on the wagons we sent out.

I planned to use my trap operators as walking advertisements for everything Blackwood produced. Chairs like these would eventually go to all corners of the north, so the products needed to be good.

I found the problem. “You missed one of the wooden pegs.”

Pel came back a minute later holding three tankards of ale, looking amused as Manson and I tried to fix the chair. “I told you to read the instructions.”

Manson scratched his head. “It didn’t seem that complicated.”

I lined up the holes and hammered the little, wooden peg into place. The peg magically swelled to fill the gap once inside, leaving it as tight as if it had been glued in.

“That’s why the bed collapsed.”

Manson grinned at her. “That’s not why the bed collapsed.”

Pel went a bright shade of red and placed the ales down on the table before sitting and hiding her face behind her hands, mortified.

Manson chuckled.

I flipped the chair over, tested it, saw that it didn’t budge, and took a seat. The chair felt solid.

“So, what new job do you have for us?” Manson asked, taking the hammer from me and putting it on the corner of the table. “If it’s working in the barns, I’m afraid I can’t start for at least another month.”

“There’s no new job,” I said.

Pel dropped her hands, frowning again. “Then what do you need us for?”

“I don’t need you for anything,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

Manson’s face fell. “You’re letting us go.”

“Is it because we failed to grow a perfect crop?” Pel asked, weakly.

“Is it because I can’t walk yet?” Manson asked.

It was like kicking puppies. I could physically feel their disappointment. Ranic was right. They did look up to me.

“I’m not letting you two go. You have a place here as my retainers for as long as you want. But the fact remains, I don’t need you for anything because you’re overqualified.”

Grins burst across their faces before quickly becoming confused stares.

“What do you mean, we are overqualified?” Pel asked.

“You two can take the great boon when you reach your second threshold, and that makes you overqualified for working on a farm. The truth is, you two should be running your own farm as farm managers.”

Pel snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not.”

“Blackwood doesn’t need more farm managers; it’s got you.” Manson frowned after he said that. “We’d have to leave to become farm managers.”

I nodded. “Eventually, but you would have to study first. You would have to get a decent education and gain access to the right promotions. It will take you quite a few years to do that, even if you were willing to invest in yourselves and purchase enough blessings to raise your intelligence to 100.”

“What if we don’t want to go?” Pel asked.

“Then you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like, but you’ll be sacrificing your potential. You two could run an extremely successful farm together, the kind of farm that could give people who are in the sort of situation you were in a chance.”

Manson grinned. “We’d be like you.”

Pel smiled. “I’d like that.”

Manson turned to her and his grin grew. “So would I.”

God, they were young.

Was this what it felt like for Ranic to deal with me? I’d only said a few words, and they were ready to change the entire course of their lives. Had I been too harsh on Ranic when I found out he was manipulating me for my own good? If it was this easy, could I really hold it against him? Was it really manipulation when it was this simple?

STEP 45

FRAMING YOUR PROBLEMS

Time is constant. Unless you’re a physicist; then, it’s relative. But for those of us who aren’t, it’s always moving forward, never stopping or slowing. It never rewinds or gives you a do-over, so if you want to succeed, you have to use some of the time life gives you wisely. You have to try to make improvements where you can. Because if you don’t do it now, then you’ll have to do it later.

The next two months passed quickly.

The royal builders used their time to finish the basement levels and storm water drains, returning the area surrounding the village centre to ground level. Manson and Pel started studying. And Jeric and Isabelle prepared a few items for the baby’s arrival.

The weekly waves continued as the dwarves dragged their feet, pushing out the start date for crafting my crossbow as much as possible. Their lack of progress frustrated the carpenters and blacksmiths who couldn’t work until I killed the giant, forcing me to make all sorts of concessions to appease them.

After spending my morning listening to another round of these complaints, Kiln led me through his beautiful new workshop, showing me all the minor changes he had made to improve productivity.

The concentrated granite walls showcased mosaics depicting carpenters at work, crafting dozens of different items in various states of completion. Hundreds of carpenters stood around workbenches, learning to make all the tiny, complicated pieces that my trap barns needed. Originally, they were only meant to learn one or two items to get them going, but we were so far behind schedule they had the chance to learn everything.

People talked over each other as I wandered around massive stone columns, covered in complex patterns that supported the four floors above, where progressively smaller, lighter projects would be undertaken.

Until now, Blackwood’s trap system had gotten by with Kiln and Brek’s quick, rough work; but going forward, we would only have access to the best. Everyone would only have access to the best.

Fitz made a quiet comment to Kiln that made the carpenter frown, and then nod, before pausing and shaking his head.

Fitz turned to me. “Kiln tells me you haven’t put a limit on board game production.”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

Fitz spotted sawdust on his suit jacket and tried to gently brush it off. “You don’t know if you have a market for these games, and the merchant guilds still won’t work with you. It seems risky.”

I frowned, not understanding his point. “How does that matter? I still need enough to send with the militia when we go wide.”

Fitz frowned back. “That is a rather interesting way of spreading your merchandise, and I would have appreciated being informed.”

Kiln stared at me guiltily. He’d said he’d tell Fitz what we were doing, but clearly he hadn’t. He was even worse than me when it came to working with others.

I smiled at Fitz, covering for him. “It makes sense doing it this way. Word of mouth will hopefully spread interest for us, and we’ll already have supplies travelling to those locations if we receive an order.” I decided to change the subject. “Kiln, are we on schedule for training?”

Kiln nodded. “The components we make for traps aren’t complex or time-consuming, so most of the carpenters only need a week or two to master each item. Everyone should be up to standard for building everything within three months.”

“Good work.”

Kiln shrugged. “Hopefully, the abandonment order is lifted by then, because we can’t build anything beyond the most basic items here currently.”

“Durg’un promises me they’ll be finished by then.”

Kiln smiled happily.

We continued the tour, heading upstairs where the furniture and smaller items, such as board games, were going to be crafted. Hundreds of carpenters worked across the upper levels, enough that this beautiful building was packed full of people ready to ply their trade once the commercial zone expanded.

We had everything we needed to go wide.

There was even a small office in the middle of each floor, where an administrator would work from, monitoring everyone’s efficiency. It had enough space for up to five people, leaving room for when the complexity of the business grew. Right now, we only needed one, but if the projects grew more diverse and we started getting orders, that would all change—and we were ready for it.

When Fitz and I were done with the carpentry workshop, we checked the storage building beside it and then headed for the new northern residential area.

The royal builders had grown tired of sleeping in tents and basements, complaining that the number of people nearby was making it harder to sleep. So, they’d put several projects on hold to fix this issue.

I wasn’t in a position to disagree. They had put up with a lot since arriving, and they were used to far better treatment than I was giving them.

Five-storey apartment buildings were the design Pavatin had settled on. They were being built in clusters of eight, with a small park in the centre. Every building was slightly different, yet all of them looked immaculate. They were the kinds of homes where wealthy merchants lived, so large balconies dotted every floor, and the master bedrooms were larger than the hamlet’s houses.

After walking through a few of the apartment buildings and receiving more than a few scowls from the royal builders for arriving unannounced, we went to check on the trapsmith workshops.

When the construction guild arrived over a year ago to create the reservoir and hamlets, I’d been surprised by how many blacksmiths turned up with them. I hadn’t known at the time, but you needed a blacksmith for every 12 masons or miners. The two classes constantly had to have the ends of the chisels reformed to continue working. The same applied to farmers to a lesser degree. So, I hadn’t even blinked when Jeric said we would need twice as many blacksmiths as carpenters for a fully functioning blacksmithing and trapsmithing industry.

The trapsmiths’ workshops were slightly different from the blacksmiths’, but since they weren’t integrated, they were being used as education facilities for the blacksmiths, while the trapsmiths continued working in Blackwood.

The blacksmiths I employed came from all walks of life, and very few of them had any experience with the sort of work I wanted them to do. Some couldn’t get their heads around the projects they were supposed to create.

The worst students were sent to the smithies in the hamlets. Those smithies were only capable of making and repairing simple items, but with the number of damaged farm tools that had been building up, they had plenty of work to do, and most who ended up there seemed content as they still received an experience bonus from my crown’s mark.

After a brief tour, we left the trapsmith workshops and strolled through the southwestern industrial area, passing back through Merchants’ Lane, a street currently devoid of buildings. We went by the area where, once Blackwood gained access to another magical building, the school was going to be built. We also checked over the southern residential area, before continuing our tour around the village and passing where my research and development building would eventually go on the south-eastern side.

Fitz finally spoke as we made our second trip around. “What exactly are we doing, sir?”

“Getting used to it,” I said.

He frowned as he walked beside me. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Fitz, you’ve been part of projects that are bigger than Blackwood, right?”

“Several.”

“Well, I haven’t. This is the largest enterprise I’ve ever been a part of. I literally went from a few dozen people to thousands in the span of a year.”

“Ah, and you’re finding it overwhelming.”

“I’m actually not.”

“That’s likely the effects of your high charisma. It lets you suppress your emotions so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Not feeling overwhelmed allows the stress not to get to you and impede your judgement, but it doesn’t stop you from being overwhelmed. Knowing this distinction is important. It’s why you are trying to ‘get used to it,’ as you said.”

I considered what he said and then nodded. “Do you have any advice?”

He held out his hand, making a sweeping gesture to the surrounding developments. “Frame how you view this differently.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“You’re looking around, seeing how much of an impact you’re having here in Blackwood, and you’re feeling overwhelmed. But that feeling of being overwhelmed is a lie. It is a false thought. If you simply put your wealth in the bank, you would be having an impact almost as large as the one here, yet because you couldn’t see that impact, you wouldn’t have this feeling of being overwhelmed.”

“But I wouldn’t be responsible, in that situation. I’d just be an investor.”

Fitz smirked and put his hands behind his back, relaxing his shoulders. “Are you instructing Kiln’s carpenters on how to do their jobs, overseeing their day-to-day work? Or are you gathering people capable of doing what you want and investing in them to achieve your goals? Only the former holds responsibility to individuals, while with the latter, others are responsible to you.”

“I’m finding people who can run these businesses for me,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t change my responsibility to these people.”

“Do you believe these businesses can succeed and grow?”

“Of course.”

“Do you believe you should be in charge of their day-to-day management?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, whether or not you view it that way, you are an investor in almost all of your businesses. Their success is not dependent on you, but on those you have put in charge. So, as far as I am aware, the only business you have that relies on you is your research and development projects. Everything else is someone else’s responsibility.”

What Fitz said made sense.

I was borrowing trouble. Yes, all of these people were here because of something I wanted, but my responsibility started and ended with giving them a goal that was achievable and supplying the tools they needed to make it happen. I’d already done that. So, it should be a simple matter of accepting this to make the feelings of being overwhelmed go away.

They didn’t.

I still felt overwhelmed by the enormity of everything I saw before me.

“I don’t think that’s why I’m feeling overwhelmed,” I said. “I’ve accepted what you said, but it hasn’t changed the way I feel.”

Fitz frowned, looked around him, and then shook his head. “Were you planning to view the camps?”

“No. There isn’t any point.”

Fitz sighed, as if my answer somehow explained everything that was going on. “People often don’t like to be confronted by the source of their guilt. You promised everyone better than what they’ve received since arriving. Perhaps this tour isn’t your way of getting used to the feeling of being overwhelmed by the scale of what you’ve started, but your way of reminding yourself what you’ll eventually give them, to ease your guilt for failing them now.”

I turned towards the direction of the camp, where thousands of people were living in tents and the turmoil in me grew stronger.

Shit.

I was feeling guilty.

I needed to go tell those dwarves to hurry.

STEP 46

DON’T MAKE FRIENDS WITH BAD PEOPLE

Honesty and integrity are important in life and in business. Datter’s corrupt actions when I was building the reservoir taught me that I needed to work with honest managers. When I tried to convince the dwarves to stop dragging their feet, I learned the same rule applied to workers. Corruption at any level slows progress.

King Grorion had contracted every dwarven master smith he could trust not to talk about what they were doing and had relocated them to Blackwood. They were all in the late stages of crafting masterworks, projects that had taken years. Finishing these projects in the new dwarven forge caused the forge to receive a massive inflow of experience, which shaved decades off its growth. The entire process was supposed to be finished in under a month, but because of the waves and the experience they generated, the dwarves who could fight above ground had bribed those who couldn’t to slow their pace.

These dwarves unanimously ignored my request to speed up, wanting to milk Blackwood for experience, so their forge took five months to level, and thus was only ready when I originally promised Kiln.

A week ago, they upgraded the dwarven forge’s oversized weapons pathway. With so many master smiths available, the crossbow that they had to build for me was a simple matter and was finished in only a few days.

The night air felt cool against my skin as I stood behind the massive mithril crossbow, checking my next shot. The sophisticated tripod mount was used to hold it steady, and aiming involved two cranks that adjusted the vertical and horizontal axes, making firing the weapon similar to using artillery.

I squeezed the trigger, only applying the slightest hint of pressure.

There was a thump as the mithril string shot forward. The weapon bucked, recoil straining the weights holding the tripod in place, a bolt larger than a spear launched from the front. The bolt sailed for three hundred feet before slamming into the dirt mound a few yards to the right of my target.

The dwarves wanted me to practice until my crossbow tool proficiency reached the Journeyman rank. Only then would they let me use it on the giant. So, Durg’un and I had moved down from the hill and set up our watch near the dwarf camp, allowing me to practice all night.

I glanced at Durg’un, reclining on a fur-covered pool chair. “You think they’ll let me use this in the next wave?”

Durg’un frowned at me. “You want to see if you can level your tool proficiency by killing monsters instead of practicing?”

“Yes.”

“Then no. It’s bad enough that you’ve raised your crossbow skill level to its maximum through your boon. I won’t let you risk our success through a quirk that allows you to substitute killing a troll with a crossbow for proper practice.”

I sighed and started turning the crank on the side of the crossbow to cock it.

The dwarves had left nothing to chance. They’d built the entire crossbow from mithril, allowing the stock to be hollow, letting them add an internal pulley system, so I could draw back the string without help. You could barely hear the whine of the moving parts as the internal gears turned, and the string drew back before locking into place.

I’d recently learned that mithril behaved differently depending on how magic was applied during the forging process. The mithril used in my nets was enchanted to be tougher, allowing a thread as thick as spider’s silk to support the weight of a bull. The mithril used in the four-yard-long stock of my new crossbow was the same as that, while the mithril used for the bow behaved like a spring, allowing for tremendous amounts of stored energy. Radian couldn’t forge this second kind of mithril, so all the greatest bows and crossbows came from the dwarves.

I loaded another seven-pound bolt onto the crossbow and went back to aiming, turning the mount’s cranks to adjust where I was shooting.

I squeezed the trigger and missed.

This was getting me nowhere, so I decided to have a break, taking a seat on the pool chair next to Durg’un. Isabelle wanted me to broach a sensitive subject, and now seemed like the right time. Durg’un was in a good mood.

“Has King Grorion accepted your offer to buy the forge yet?”

Durg’un shook his head. “He wishes to hear the opinions of the other kings before he makes a decision. The next meeting of the kings will take place in seven months.”

Isabelle was afraid the holdup was something like that.

“Well, let him know he’s got until I kill the giant to decide. After that is over, his people are no longer welcome on my land without travel papers.”

“He won’t like that.”

I shrugged. “There are only three ways this will end: You buy the forge and bring in dwarves whom I can trust; you destroy the forge; or our kingdoms go to war, so you can add this village to your kingdom to keep the forge in your borders. The kings will have made up their minds on this long ago. All King Grorion needs to do is ask. He’s probably stalling for a better price.”

Durg’un smirked, confirming Isabelle had hit the main reason for the delay firmly on the head. “I’ll need that in writing.”

“I’ll have Fitz work on it in the morning.”

* * *

A few weeks later, I squeezed the trigger and watched the practice bone bolt slam into the centre of the minivan-sized target, three hundred feet away. The dozen dwarves assessing me nodded and added a mark to my tally. I’d hit 20 out of 20 dead centre. I’d managed this with regular bolts several days ago, but the practice bone bolts didn’t fly the same as the regular ones had, so it had taken some getting used to.

I turned to the assessors, knowing I’d passed. “I still want a few more days to practice,” I lied. “I’ll try to kill the giant the day after the next wave.”

The lead tester barely came up to my belly button, but he shook his head, wobbling his long beard. He beckoned me to follow him and started walking towards the target. “We would like you to try a minimum of two days after the next wave.”

I frowned as I walked. “Why?”

“For this to be a proper test of our weapon, the village-eater needs to be in fighting form. It’s at its weakest the day after it has used its ability, so we need to wait until it’s recovered its mana.”

“That’s fine with me.”

* * *

Durg’un and I sat on the edge of the Sun Serpent statue’s head, watching the dwarven camp in the distance. We’d had a busy night. The dwarves knew they were leaving soon, whether or not the weapon was successful, so they made a last-minute attempt at reaching the northern hamlet.

I leaned back and cracked my spine. “I’ve installed all the mithril nets for tomorrow’s wave and reset the trapdoors. Everything is organised for slaughtering the caged monsters.”

“Good.”

“Has King Grorion come to a decision?”

“No.”

“In that case, I want to amend our deal. If you can’t buy the forge, I want half the experience from your potion.”

Durg’un scowled. “Our deal was I receive 90%.”

“Our deal was you get 90% to buy the forge. Technically, if you don’t buy the forge, our deal is void.”

Durg’un frowned. I’d caught him in a technicality, and he didn’t like to lie. “This is true. I agree to your amendment. Half of all you gain is fair if I can’t purchase the forge for my clan.”

* * *

The following day, Durg’un sat beside me and opened a golden box that was slightly larger than the one for Ririon’s special reserve. Inside was a beautiful, crystal bottle the size of a half-gallon milk container. The potion it held looked like something that came out of a septic tank.

It was disgusting.

In the distance, Blackwood was already reacting to the Gluttonous Feast ability, well-practiced for what was to come. Defensive lines were going through last-minute checks, and workers were putting away tools, having chosen to work until it began, no longer overly concerned by the waves.

I stared at the bottle, trying to ignore the appearance, as I wondered how I was going to run comfortably with so much potion in my stomach. “You didn’t mention it would be so big.”

Durg’un chuckled sheepishly. “Our alchemists only figured out how to make such a powerful potion more concentrated in the past decade. It is as small as a legendary potion could be at the time of its creation.”

He handed me the bottle.

It was cold to the touch, and there was a lot of weight to it. The crystal seemed to be an inch thick. “Are you sure it’s still good? It looks kind of rotten.”

“The box it was in can preserve the magical effects for millennia.”

“What about the potion itself?”

“That part’s degraded, but with your constitution, it won’t make you sick.”

So, it was rotten.

Great.

I broke the wax seal around the top of the bottle and removed the crystal stopper.

“Don’t spit it out,” Durg’un warned. “And don’t stop drinking once you start. Potions must be drunk all at once.”

“I know how potions work.”

I gave the contents an undignified sniff. Its odour wasn’t pleasant, but neither was it atrocious. I could do this.

Durg’un sighed. “The smell is deceptive.”

“As in, it will taste better or worse than I think?”

“Worse. Much worse.”

I gave myself a moment to mentally prepare and then put the bottle to my lips and started drinking. The speed potions I’d bought tasted like watered-down balsamic vinegar. This tasted like stale Red Bull that someone had been using to drown cigarette butts and ferment sauerkraut. It wasn’t just the taste, though. It had a texture of sandy slime, with random chunks that reminded me of vomit. It was enough to make a maggot gag.

It was the most revolting thing I’d ever put in my mouth. I choked down mouthful after mouthful, forcing myself to keep going. I don’t know what the bottle was made from, but none of the potion stuck to the sides. It just kept pouring out as I swallowed.

As the last drop passed through my lips, a prompt appeared.

Congratulations, you have ingested a legendary experience potion for the first time and gained an additional effect.

Effects:

+1,000% experience from all sources for 1 week.

+10% experience from all sources of experience permanently.

I swallowed the mouthful of potion-vomit that had tried to make its way back up and turned to Durg’un. “I’m surprised you didn’t take this yourself. A permanent 10% experience increase isn’t something you should walk away from with your lifespan.”

Durg’un shrugged. “You can only gain the buff once.”

“I thought you said you got this potion decades ago and never had an opportunity that validated its use.”

“I did and I haven’t. I did, however, have a use for the other five I was given. This was my last and I don’t expect to ever receive any more.”

I grinned. “I’ll make sure that it’s profitable for you, then. I’ll see you in the morning about your experience.”

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached your maximum potential for your Trapsmith skill.

Skill: Trapsmith

Level: 100

Effect:

+200% to your trapsmith ability

+200% to your effectiveness at locating and camouflaging traps.

* * *

Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Trapsmith skill. You have earned a new level for your title: Skill Master

Skill Master

Level: 6

Effect: +60% to skill experience.

STEP 47

WE ALL HAVE TO GROW UP SOMEDAY

The engorged giant slept peacefully against the tower, digesting its last meal, as I prepared the massive crossbow above. Despite our best effort to hold back the waves, enough monsters had gotten through in the early days to let it grow another 25 feet. It was more than twice its previous mass and too heavy to jump. It now looked like someone had crossed King Kong with Bigfoot and given the ugly love child a fur coat to wear.

It wouldn’t be the worst outcome if the dwarves’ weapon wouldn’t work. The giant’s ability turned Blackwood into an experience-farming dream. Torvac and Misk had both gained several full experience crystals for their swordsman and wizard classes by holding back the tide. Both considered it an unprecedented amount of experience, as hunting deep dwellers usually required hours of tracking to locate something to kill. If the dwarves left in failure, the kingdom could bring in the militia and high-level warriors and adventurers and use us as a training ground.

I’d have to move our industry to Brinkdale, but it would be worth it if Blackwood could hire itself out as a training ground for the kingdom’s elites.

I finished setting up the tripod and lifted the mithril crossbow onto the mount, straining under the 120 pounds of awkwardness. It was a fraction of the weight it should have been because of the mithril, but its size made moving it cumbersome. It also didn’t help that I kept laughing.

I’d told the dwarves I needed to paint something on the sides for religious reasons, and they’d believed me. Seeing the words ‘ACME CORPORATION’ in big, white letters improved my mood. Trying to kill a giant definitely made me feel like I was in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

King Grorion’s assessors watched me from the side of the reservoir, making sure everything was done correctly. Every step of the test was carefully planned and catalogued, leaving nothing to chance.

After several minutes of struggling, I managed to get it in the correct place. Inserting the mithril pins to stop it from flying backwards when it fired, I then started checking my work. Once I was absolutely sure everything was right, I began aiming, adjusting the cranks so the crossbow would point down.

Far to my right, Zector and Torvac waited with the Academy of Law scholars who could handle the giant’s aura. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Radian, so everyone was paying careful attention to what was going on.

Only about a hundred people had turned up from Blackwood to watch. Not being able to come close or see anything made it an unappealing experience for regular spectators. But people were still curious to see what would happen, hoping that there would be a success after my numerous failures with other methods.

I finished adjusting the cranks for the tripod mount, aiming the crossbow at the giant’s stomach. I signalled I was done.

Durg’un walked over, carrying the weapons’ enchanted containment crate over his shoulder. It was larger than a coffin and made from the same black metal as his armour. He put the crate down beside the crossbow, and then checked over the elbow-length gloves and the leather body suit I’d been given, paying careful attention to the seams where individual pieces met.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

The dwarves had dressed me in a gimp suit.

He nodded, satisfied with what he saw. “Go slowly.”

I had to lift the skin-tight hood to speak. “I know what I’m doing.”

Durg’un shook his head, more serious than any time I’d seen him. “No one knows what they’re doing here. This weapon is unknown to this world. We don’t know what bringing it so far might have done to it. It might have shaken while we travelled and destabilised, upsetting the enchantments. Opening the containment box may release enchanted bone dust that can be breathed in only to grow and send out shards through your lungs, killing you from the inside out.”

I took a step back. “No one told me that.”

“We thought you might object.”

“No shit! So, this suit isn’t to stop me from interfering with the enchantments, but to protect me from the weapon’s side effects.”

“Potential side effects which may not even exist. And it does stop you from interfering with the enchantments.”

The side effects didn’t change anything. I still had to shoot it. “Let’s do this.” I pulled the hood back over my mouth and throat. Then I put on the goggles and heavy glass face shield and held my breath.

Inhaling bone dust that could grow like cancer sounded like a painful way to go. I could hold my breath for fifteen minutes without struggling, because of how high my endurance was. The next time I took a breath would be in Blackwood.

Durg’un placed his hand against the containment box and spoke something in Dwarvish. Gears and internal mechanisms twirled, and then he lifted the lid.

The bolt sitting inside looked so much like the practice ones that I couldn’t see a difference. It was two yards long and bone white, with artificial feathers on the end to stabilise it during flight. Runes were inscribed all over the surface, so fine that I’d need a magnifying glass to read them.

Durg’un backed up.

I leaned over and picked up the bolt, feeling the now-familiar weight of the large bone missile. I couldn’t feel any difference between it and the practice bolts, so there was nothing to indicate that it would fly differently.

I carefully loaded it onto the crossbow’s rail, making sure everything was placed correctly. I rechecked my work three times to make sure there were no mistakes, nor anywhere the bolt could be caught. A misfire would likely kill me.

Once I was 100% sure that wouldn’t happen, I sighted up one last time, making sure I’d hit the giant’s massive stomach. Everything was finally ready.

Months of preparation and weeks of practice had gone into this moment. I wish I could say I was excited, but the experience was underwhelming. No one would want to hear the story of the guy who shot a sleeping giant. So, this whole event was sort of anticlimactic.

I squeezed the trigger.

The crossbow kicked, bucking against my shoulder, as the bolt shot forward. It sailed down through the air like the Grim Reaper’s kiss, slamming into the giant’s stomach, flashing with light as enchantments activated, allowing it to disappear below the skin.

There was no explosion, no crack of thunder. The giant just opened its eyes and scratched its stomach, looking around, groggy from its nap. It spotted people near the edge and growled at us menacingly, deciding whether we were worth the effort of roaring.

It decided we weren’t worth its time and closed its eyes to go back to sleep.

A few seconds passed, and then it reopened its eyes and glanced down at its stomach, rubbing harder. It seemed more annoyed than distressed, like it had an itch that wouldn’t go away.

I turned to Durg’un. “Should I prepare the second shot?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Even a weapon as powerful as this won’t kill instantly. The assessors will tell us when to prepare a second one.”

I shrugged and continued holding my breath.

Another minute passed. The giant’s scratching slowly grew more and more intense. After another minute, it started to scratch more violently, growing visibly distressed. Finally, it gave a great moan and clutched its stomach.

The dwarves and scholars began to shout, excited by the unfolding events.

Durg’un shared a fierce grin with me. “It’s been incapacitated. If this weapon does no more than that, this is already a great success.”

But it did more than that.

Around about the two-and-a-half-minute mark, the giant screamed. Painful wails echoed from the reservoir, hurting my ears, but causing no damage. This wasn’t an attack. This was agony. The moment the screams started, it keeled over onto its side, writhing in agony, completely unable to defend itself.

At the three-minute mark, white, thin spikes began to protrude from its stomach, growing larger. The giant tried to brush them off, but four new spikes appeared for each one snapped away.

At the four-minute mark, the giant vomited blood and passed out. The bone spikes continued to grow, erupting from all over its stomach, ribs, and pelvis. Some grew directly out like sea urchin spikes, while others curved and stabbed back in.

I shuddered, revolted by what I was seeing.

It writhed in agony as the spikes thickened. Flashes of purple and red light started to appear as its damage mitigation abilities tried to save its life. Their flashes grew more frequent and brighter, right up until it died a minute later.

I was the first to know, because bright light hit me and a prompt appeared.

Well done, you have slain a Champion and gained its mark. Slaying a Champion and gaining its mark qualifies you for your third threshold. Would you like to use this trial as your qualification for ascension? You have sixty seconds to make this decision or the opportunity will be lost.

Yes/No?

60...

I immediately selected, Yes. Knowing what it meant, and that I had to hurry, before the next thing happened. Durg’un had said becoming a chief was the worst experience of his life and becoming a champion was the same.

The pain hit me right as I agreed.

I collapsed, curling over, screaming. It was like the hook worms all over again, only it was coming from every direction. There was a hissing sound in my ears that I somehow knew was coming from my blood.

Congratulations, you have passed through your third threshold. Your speciality has grown stronger.Master Farm Manager

You are a man of big dreams. You prefer to give orders and facilitate others in their work than to do the work yourself.

-You can now have 64 farmers under you who receive the same benefits of working on your farm as you do. These farmers can also be other Farm Managers, but they can only have the same number of farmers under them that a skilled farmer of the same level would have under them, and their promotions do not apply to your farm.

-Your promotions apply to everyone working under you, along with yourself, unless otherwise stated. (Identical promotions will default to the highest-level promotion.)

-Work performed by farmers under you applies to your future thresholds. (Work performed by farmers under you because of your farm manor does not apply to your future thresholds.)

-Your attribute allotment will remain as constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma.

The prompt faded on its own as I convulsed in agony, hearing my bones crack as my muscles began to dissolve around them.

Well done, you have passed through your third threshold and improved your Farm Manager speciality. Since you have slain a Champion and gained its mark, you have received an epic threshold boon.

Your basic class modifiers are now 50% stronger.

I could barely see through the pain of having my body reconstruct itself cell-by-cell, and the prompt stayed until it naturally faded.

Another prompt appeared.

Well done, you have passed through your third threshold and gained access to your reserve of experience. Your reserve contained enough Farmer experience to increase your level multiple times. For passing through your threshold, you receive a 1 point increase to all of your base attributes instead of your regular attribute allotment.

Class: Farmer

Level: 99

Effects:

+149% to farming ability.

+149% to farming ability while on your farm.

Your Strength has increased by 1

Your Endurance has increased by 1

Your Dexterity has increased by 1

Your Agility has increased by 1

Your Constitution has increased by 13

Your Intelligence has increased by 13

Your Wisdom has increased by 13

Your Charisma has increased by 13

You have 24 unassigned attribute points.

Would you like to assign them?

Yes/No?

I continued to convulse, unable to pass out. So, when the prompt eventually faded, the next one appeared.

You have promotions available. Would you like to select your promotions?

Yes/No?

I couldn’t focus to select, No. The prompt eventually faded like the one before it, and another one appeared.

Congratulations, you have slain a champion and received the Champion’s Mark.

When one champion dies, another is born. Let the world shake as the balance of power tips in your favour.

Champion’s Mark

Level: 1

Effect:

Champion’s Body:

+3 to all attributes.

+1 stamina regeneration per second.

+1 health regeneration per second.

+1 mana regeneration per second.

+5% to stamina.

+5% to health.

+5% to mana.

Champion’s Might:

+5% to base armour.

+5% to base damage.

+5% to base speed.

+1% chance to do critical damage.

I swallowed my tongue and then felt it dissolve and reform, as the prompt faded and was replaced by another.

The kingdom offers its support. Your crown’s mark and champion’s mark have been forcefully merged, evolving into a crown’s champion mark.

Heavy is the head who wears the crown, but blessed is the man who helps him. The king has marked you for your services to the kingdom. Now the kingdom offers its support in return, no matter how great the cost.

Crown’s Champion Mark

Level: 8

Effect:

Champion’s Body:

+8 stamina regeneration per second.

+8 health regeneration per second.

+8 mana regeneration per second.

+40% to stamina.

+40% to health.

+40% to mana.

Champion’s Might:

+40% to base armour.

+40% to base damage.

+40% to base speed.

+8% chance to do critical damage.

Crown’s Favour

+40 to all attributes.

+8% to the quality of your farm’s produce.

+40% to the quantity of your farm’s produce.

+40% to experience gained on your farm.

-40% to the negative effects of disease and pests on your farm.

-40% to the fertilizer requirements on your farm.

If a field on your farm is below level 8, it will immediately level to this level.

My blood continued to hiss as the prompt faded. I thought I heard shouting and fighting going on around me, but it was a scattered dream at the edge of my reality.

I have no idea how long I spent in that agonising abyss, but from one moment to the next, it was over. There was no gradual fading of pain, no slow progression of awareness. One moment I was gone, and the next, I was back.

Another prompt appeared.

Well done, you have experienced agonising pain from two sources simultaneously without losing your sanity. Your Greater Fearless Mark has gained additional levels.

I know the taste of blood and the touch of steel under my skin. I have felt my flesh peel from my bones and my hair burn off with flame. Do your worst.

Greater Fearless Mark

Level: Max

Effect:

You are immune to becoming afraid of actions or sources which could cause great physical pain.

I groaned, dismissing the prompt, feeling some sort of liquid inside my now-baggy suit. The stuff smelled like it came from an outhouse and burned like concentrated Tiger Balm. It was even inside my goggles, making it impossible to see. But that wasn’t my biggest problem.

I’d somehow swallowed fire, and it wanted to climb out of me. I rolled over and ripped off my face shield and goggles, before yanking off my hood.

Black sludge splashed against the ground as I heaved up every meal I’d ever eaten in one burning expulsion. My stomach muscles contracted violently, cracking my ribs with their intensity, forcing everything out as if my life depended on it.

“Let the filth out,” Durg’un said, grabbing me by the neck and jamming fat fingers down my throat, causing me to gag and vomit again. “It will leave you feeling sick for days if you don’t.”

Durg’un’s aggressive prodding repeated itself over and over again, making me vomit the burning mess six more times before he finally let me be.

I crawled a few feet away and stripped, removing the stinging pollution that covered me, trying to get away from the stench and the painful substance. I threw the soiled clothing aside and started trying to wipe the muck from me, not caring about my dignity.

“Let me help you,” Durg’un said.

His eyes glowed, and a wave of force caught me from all directions, scraping downward, peeling the molasses- thick sludge off. The muck slid from my skin, oozing down in a thickening ripple, before shredding my underwear and forming a puddle at my feet. I rose in the air, levitating off the ground, as the process occurred a second time.

Once it was over, Durg’un floated me several yards away and dropped me on my feet. Fire immediately engulfed the puddle of muck and my former hazard wear.

Durg’un scanned the area, and several other spots began to burn. When he was finally satisfied, he turned to me and grinned.

Despite looking spotless, my skin still burned, but it was nothing compared to the sensation I’d been experiencing a moment ago. I returned the grin. “That was unexpected.”

Durg’un chuckled. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.” He gave my shoulder a playful shove, knocking me off my feet. “You aren’t a delicate flower anymore.”

The fall didn’t hurt or cause discomfort, but as I picked myself up, I noticed Torvac on his knees a short distance away. Then I spotted a dozen unconscious dwarves and Zector vomiting. There were now only two dwarves watching the pit and taking notes.

“What happened to them?” I asked, nodding to the dwarves.

Durg’un turned and spat. “My people decided that King Grorion wouldn’t find offense if they killed you for your new mark and slaughtered this village to hide their actions.” He pointed at Zector. “The scholar thought your transformation was a perfect chance to study the phenomenon and got a drop of your foulness on his skin as you went through the transformation.”

I turned to Torvac. “Why are you kneeling?”

“Torvac is dwarf’s prisoner. Torvac rushed to protect Friend Arnold, but the dwarf didn’t trust Torvac’s intentions.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to kill an incapacitated champion and risk going feral,” Durg’un said.

I groaned.

Torvac looked up and grinned, showing half his face was swollen. There was a fist-shaped bruise on his cheek.

Something exploded very far away, and we all turned to see it streaking across the sky towards us, moving faster than I could follow. It was a blur of white against a blue sky, like a shooting star.

Torvac leapt over me, before I could fully understand what I was seeing, landing in front of me, weapons drawn, ready for a fight. “Torvac does not know this creature.”

Durg’un raised his hand, and his axe flew to it. “I’ve never seen it before either. It’s using magic. That’s a flight spell, not an ability. Guard Arnold. Its power is similar to my own, maybe greater. It will slaughter you if you try to engage.” Durg’un’s eyes glowed. “I have called the lich to assist me.”

The blur sped closer and then slammed into the ground thirty yards away, sliding along a wave of dirt. A crack of thunder followed, showing it had broken the sound barrier.

And I stared, dumbstruck.

It was an angel.

Two snow-white wings sat behind a flawless, pale body. Black, curly hair crowned his head, and his eyes glowed with a soft, holy light. He was muscled to just the right degree to not trade power for beauty, yet gave the impression of an unstoppable force. A more perfect being had never existed.

Somehow, I knew its name without needing to be told, though it was in no language a human’s tongue could pronounce. Its name was its identity, and knowing it let me know who and what it was. It was goodness, on a fundamental level I didn’t know existed before seeing it. It was something purer and more wonderful than I could ever hope to be.

“You moronic nitwit of a farmer!” Salem shouted from the perfect, angelic body. “Your thrice-damned Crown’s Champion Mark has strengthened our bond to completion. I’m stuck with you now.”

Torvac cleared his throat. “Friend Arnold knows this creature?”

“I think that’s my familiar,” I said, unsure despite the voice. “But I’ve never seen Salem look like this.”

Salem scowled at me, somehow making the expression convey Heaven’s outrage. It took every point of charisma I had not to crumble before the look. Every fibre of my being was telling me I was too unclean to look upon him.

I was experiencing a crisis of faith the same way I had when I discovered souls were real, shortly after being incarnated here. I decided to treat this the same way. I purposely ignored the larger ramifications and forced myself not to think about it.

Salem continued to scowl. “Go into your interface and look at my mark. I will walk you through the process that will allow me to transform back to something that doesn’t announce our location to the demon lord.”

“Do as the creature says,” Durg’un instructed, keeping his eyes on Salem. “But you stay where you are, or I will strike you down.”

“I’m not a fool, Chief Durg’un,” Salem replied. “I don’t wish this to escalate, but I’ll warn you only once that you will fail if you try to harm me.”

I opened up my interface and looked at his mark. It had completely changed.

Power shared is power gained. Let my strength be your strength, and your strength be mine. Your purpose is my purpose from this day until the end.

Familiar’s Mark.

Level: Infinite

Effect:

Unrestricted access to your familiar interface.

Unrestricted access to your familiar’s mana pool.

Telepathic bond with your familiar.

“Good,” Salem said. “Now go into the familiar interface and access my power restriction sub interface.”

“How do you know what I’m seeing?”

“I have just finished experiencing every moment of your life through a temporary psychic link. I now know you more intimately than you know yourself. And if you don’t hurry up, I will tell these nice people how you embarrassed yourself with Sally Winterlin at Don’s 18th birthday.”

Torvac cleared his throat. “Torvac is interested in hearing this story.”

I scowled, and I quickly followed Salem’s instructions, not liking this new situation. “No one is ever hearing about what happened that night.”

Misk landed nearby before I was done.

“What is this creature?” Misk asked as he walked over, hands crackling with electric energy.

Salem glared at him. “Master Wizard Misk, kindly discharge that second spell you’re hiding behind the lightning, or I will tell your friend Torvac about the time I caught you going through Wizard Yara’s wardrobe.”

Misk frowned. “That is not a surface thought that could be read. And there is only one individual who knew what happened that night. Deputy Headmaster Alistrin, it is good to see you again.” Misk let the spell fade and bowed. “I heard you were in hiding after the incident.”

“I still am, if Arnold can ever get me access to my abilities. And I go by another name now.”

“Friend Arnold called him Salem.”

I found the options Salem wanted me to and changed them from no access to full access.

“Finally,” Salem said, annoyed.

A ripple passed across his body, and he shrunk in the space of a blink, turning from an angel back into his former midnight-black cat self.

Torvac looked at me. “Torvac is confused. Torvac thought Friend Arnold was farmer before Arnold became champion.”

“I am a farmer,” I said.

Misk looked at me, noticing my naked state for the first time. “Congratulations, you must be the first purely non-combatant class to receive a Champion’s Mark in the kingdom’s history. Perhaps even the world’s first.”

“Why does Friend Arnold have familiar? Torvac is confused. Familiar is for wizards.”

“Deputy Headmaster Alistrin, I mean Salem, is in hiding,” Misk explained to Torvac, before turning to Salem. “Can I assume your mark was given to Arnold as a way for you to hide?”

Salem nodded. “It was supposed to be temporary. Now I am stuck with him.”

Durg’un scowled as he lifted his axe. “Someone explain what is going on, or I start swinging.”

Salem sighed and looked up at Durg’un. “I am a familiar. Arnold was given my mark, shortly after he incarnated into this world, allowing me to go into hiding in a way that no one could track. Through a bizarre series of events, my mark has now integrated with Arnold like it would with a wizard, which is the reason for the odd form you saw moments ago.”

Durg’un paused. “Who are you to warrant such treatment?”

“It was I and my previous companion who brought the demon lord to this world, of which you are, no doubt, aware.”

Durg’un stiffened. “We have seen no trace of the calamity in our holds.”

“As of my last update, we have seen no signs in any of the eleven kingdoms either, sir,” Misk said.

“That is not good,” Salem said. “But we should discuss it at another time. Right now, I need to clear the air, or Chief Durg’un is going to take actions he will regret.”

Durg’un glared at him. “How did you hide your presence from me?”

“Easily.”

Misk forcefully cleared his throat. “Sir, please don’t cause another incident with a foreign ambassador.”

“I was merely stating facts.”

Durg’un continued to glare. “Misk, do you vouch for the authenticity of this creature’s claims?”

Misk paused. “I met a man walking north.”

Salem rolled his eyes. “His sister walked by his side.”

“He carried two sacks of potatoes.”

“And yet his empty purse was his heaviest burden.”

Misk nodded. “This is Deputy Headmaster Alistrin. We are safe.”

Durg’un lowered his axe and glanced at me, raising an eyebrow.

I grinned. “What? I had a life before I met you, too.”

Durg’un snorted.

Seeing the confrontation had passed, Salem walked forward, stopping in front of Torvac.

Salem glared up at him. “I do not appreciate you using Arnold for a suicide mission. Do so again, and you will spend the remainder of your days thinking you are a four-year-old girl.”

Torvac nodded, unfazed by the threat. He reached down to place his hand on Salem’s back. “Torvac knew Salem’s former companion. Torvac is saddened for Salem’s loss.”

Salem, to my surprise, let Torvac touch him. “I miss Maraveer every moment of every day. His absence is beyond any physical pain I have experienced in your world. Thank you for your kind words.”

Torvac withdrew his hand and stood. “Torvac will keep Friend Arnold safe.”

Salem chuckled. “I’m not so attached to him. If you fail, I will not hold it against you. But try not to get him killed unnecessarily.”

Torvac laughed, saw my disapproval, and laughed harder. “What? Is good joke.”

Durg’un walked over to me, keeping an eye on Salem. “I’ve informed King Grorion of your transformation. The debate over invading this village and adding it to our kingdom is now moot. Taking this land risks angering you and creating a monster that sees millions of dwarves slaughtered in their hold two centuries from now. It is no longer a choice my people will make.”

I chose to ignore the fact that Durg’un thought I might be capable of genocide. “Do you think he will let you buy the forge now?”

Durg’un shrugged. “Even kings tread lightly around chiefs and champions for fear of us going rogue. He will do whatever is in the best interest of his kingdom. If you wish the forge to stay, it will hold weight.”

“You protected me while I was incapacitated, when you no longer stood to gain anything from my survival, and a lot from my death. If you want the forge to survive, I am happy to let it stay.”

“I would like that.”

“Then I want it to stay. I’ll have Fitz put that in writing for you, but first I’m going to go have the longest bath of my life.”

“Make sure you burn the tub.”

I laughed.

“I’m not joking. The muck covering you is toxic to dwarves; it can kill humans. Actually, let me deal with this for you.”

Durg’un’s eyes glowed, and a wave of force caught me from all directions.

I saw Torvac look up and followed his gaze to see a pillar of water descending towards me from the sky. I had just enough time to close my eyes, and then I experienced the most violent bath of my life.

STEP 48

BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT

Fifteen minutes later, Fitz stood nearby, glancing over the edge of the reservoir, holding his clipboard. “I’ll begin implementing our plan for lifting the abandonment order.” He made a note and turned back to me, eyes travelling over my body. “Would you like me to inform everyone of your transformation, sir, or would you prefer to do so yourself?”

I finished buttoning up the now too-tight shirt he’d collected from my wardrobe for me. “You can do it. I don’t care.”

Fitz made another note. “Did you know this would happen?

Torvac laughed.

Fitz waited for my reply.

I shrugged. “I knew it was possible. But there’s, like, a 1% chance of this happening, so I didn’t take it seriously.”

Durg’un walked back over, having finished decontaminating the water. “No one has ever killed a village-eater alone, so we don’t know if that’s true.”

Fitz made another note. “So, what happened, exactly?”

People were going to ask questions, and Fitz was trying to save me time. If I didn’t explain it now, I’d end up repeating myself. So, I took a few minutes to explain everything that had happened. Including the parts where Zector got some of the sludge on his skin and had to be taken to Yaceb’s by Misk, along with Salem’s transformation.

Fitz stared at me for several seconds after I finished recounting what had happened. “You don’t make my job easy.”

I grinned back. “That’s why you keep getting raises.”

Fitz sighed. “I suppose that’s true. Now, I believe there are certain protocols for people becoming Champions. However, I don’t know what they are.”

“Protocol simple,” Torvac said. “Friend Arnold must write to King and say Arnold is Champion. King will not care, because Arnold is farmer with no combat experience. Academy of Law might want to study him, though.”

Fitz made a note. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Torvac is marked as one most likely to receive Champion’s mark. Torvac takes many steps to make sure this does not happen. Torvac’s wife is very firm that if Torvac becomes Champion, Torvac will eat nothing but salads. Torvac does not wish to suffer this fate.”

Durg’un gave a loud grunt to get my attention. I’d spent so much time with him he didn’t have to say any more than that.

“I’ll get your experience once the winch system is in place,” I said, not really paying attention.

Durg’un was getting impatient. He could see a literal mountain of wealth below us, and he wanted his share.

“We don’t need that,” he said.

He blurred, grabbing me around my waist with one arm.

I had half a second to register that he was holding me, and then he leapt, yanking me sideways, and pulled me over the edge into the reservoir.

Falling is not like flying.

There is nothing majestic about the experience unless you are 20,000 feet high. I screamed and swore, feeling the wind race by, but I couldn’t do a thing as the seconds passed and the ground rapidly approached.

Durg’un laughed like a madman as the giant grew bigger.

In the last hundred feet, a white glow surrounded us, and our descent slowed, making me feel like I was in an elevator. A moment later, we lightly touched the ground, landing on our feet with no trouble.

I glared at him. “Was that necessary?”

Durg’un grinned back. “Yes. You’re a Champion now. You need to be made of sterner stuff.”

Torvac slammed into the ground beside us, with a mighty crash, rolling to his feet, brushing dust from his clothes. He gave me a grin that matched Durg’un’s.

I turned and looked up to the top of the reservoir 250 feet above and then turned back to Torvac.

He chuckled. “High strength is good for falling.”

“Clearly.”

Distracted and wanting his experience, Durg’un stepped past us, eyes glowing. He started examining the massive corpse.

I had barns smaller than the giant. It was at least eighty feet tall, and its fur was probably two yards thick. Seeing it up close made it look absurd. How any living creature could be that big was crazy. Yet it wasn’t the biggest monster out there. And if it hadn’t gained its Gluttonous Feast ability, it wouldn’t even be in the top ten.

I shook my head, noticing the loot orb floating above it was larger than I was.

Durg’un grimaced as his eyes glowed. “The enchantments on the bone are still active. They had a similar problem with the smaller tests. Give me a moment.” He started moving closer.

We were near the giant’s head. Its back had arched in the last moments of life, so it was spread out instead of curled into a ball.

I stared at the massive collection of spikes further down its body. The bone bolt had grown to fill the giant’s stomach cavity, erupting through its skin and flesh in sharp, white spikes in hundreds of places. It was a cancerous sort of growth that looked violent, painful, and most of all, dangerous.

Durg’un continued toward the nearest bone spike jutting from the shoulder, stopping five yards short. He took one more step and then quickly backed up, as the spike grew towards him.

Durg’un came back grinning. “I’ve got good news. You can safely touch its foot. Follow me.”

He didn’t walk past the giant’s body to get to its foot. Instead, he started walking the opposite way, circling around the tower.

I walked after him, hugging the reservoir wall to keep as far away from the dead giant as I could. “Why’s that good news?”

Durg’un slowed his pace. “The enchanters speculated that making the weapon bigger would make the negative effects worse. When they tested it before coming here, the enchantments made the bone growth properties too potent. After they killed the creatures, the bones grew even when the one touching it was wearing protective clothing. This weapon pulls health from anyone when they get too close. It’s going to make decontamination difficult, but the range isn’t as far as we feared.”

Torvac caught up as we reached the foot. “Will giant be safe once bones removed?”

Durg’un shrugged. “We’re not sure, but we’re ready to pay for the corpse if it can’t be removed safely.”

We finished walking around the tower and stopped to stare at the giant’s massive foot. I’d killed trolls that were smaller. It even had its own ecosystem. Small patches of moss and fungus grew between its toes and in the cracks of its heel. Matted gunk I didn’t want to name clung everywhere else.

I walked over and placed my hand against the cleanest part of the heel I could find, trying not to breathe in. A prompt appeared.

Well done, you have successfully defended your farm against a primitive giant.

A bolt of lightning ran through my fingers, more intense than anything I’d ever felt. It wasn’t painful, but it was incredibly uncomfortable. I gritted my teeth and held out my right hand to let the first experience orb form.

I was used to a slow coalescing of experience, having a crystal gently grow in size. This time, the melon-sized experience crystal formed in half a second, forcing open my fingers.

I stared, surprised, and then backpedalled fifty feet as the lightning tingle grew more intense. I leaned down, intending to place the green crystal orb on the ground, but the moment I let go, another crystal appeared, falling beside the first. The moment after, yet another appeared. I started walking backwards. Crystal after crystal appeared, before falling a few inches to land on the ground.

“Is this normal?” Durg’un asked.

“Is not,” Torvac said.

The crystals continued to form, one every second, for well over an hour. Fitz and the now-conscious dwarves climbed down with the pulley system, so by the time the flow of orbs slowed, I had an audience.

Torvac started counting when he sensed it getting to the end. “7489. 7490. 7491. 7492. 7493. 7494.” The experience finally stopped coming. “Is not bad haul. Not biggest Torvac has heard of, but is close.”

I turned to him. “I call bullshit. What could give more experience than this?”

“King Toad.”

I conceded the point. He was probably right.

Durg’un gulped, swayed a little, and then collapsed staring at the massive pile of green crystals the dwarves and Fitz had tossed together. “My share be worth almost eight million crowns without including everything else you owe me. I’ve just doubled my entire clan’s wealth.”

I snorted. “That depends on whether you can buy the forge.”

Durg’un held up a ring he was wearing. “King Grorion agreed when I updated him about your disposition. He sold it to me at base. It’s a little less than what I earned here.”

“That was at base?” I repeated, stunned.

“Yes, now how much more is there to come?”

Fitz looked at his notes. “There are another 3,281 crystals from your share of the last wave and the monsters Arnold slaughtered. It’s in a barn.”

Durg’un’s eyes widened.

He seemed to be in a good mood, so I decided to see if he would finally admit the truth. “Would you mind converting some of my experience to gold for me?”

Durg’un shook his head. “Can’t. The system limits interspecies experience trading. I can only sell this to the system because I gave you the potion that created it and let you keep 10% of what it generated.”

I stared at him, trying to appear upset. Fitz had found this out for me months ago, but I wanted to hear him say it. “You made it sound like you were giving me 10% out of the goodness of your heart.”

Durg’un chuckled, seeing through my performance.

I’d been a little disappointed when I originally found out he couldn’t turn my share of the giant’s experience into gold, but not that much. It would have cost thousands of people their chance at gaining their starting experience if he could.

I was willing to swap their chances at a future for complete financial freedom. I didn’t like that I was willing to do that, but I’d sleep better not having to worry about paying back the loan for the building projects.

I got up and waved Fitz over. We started sorting through the pile, breaking it down into three unequal shares. Because of Durg’un’s potion, my share, which had previously been the same as King Grorion’s, had tripled to 1021 crystals. That was almost four times what we received when we captured the giant, but I had far more experience buffs now than I did then. The assessors counted over everything when we were done to make sure everyone was satisfied.

They were.

Durg’un walked over to his massive pile, grinning madly, and held out his hand. There was a flash of light, and enough experience to get over 6,131 farmers to level 100 vanished, replaced by half their value in gold bars. It was a lot of gold bars.

Durg’un flicked his hand, and his eyes glowed. The bars rose into the air as he held open a purse identical to the one the bank had given me. The bars poured in like sand down a vacuum cleaner, disappearing as the magic was reabsorbed by the system.

The dwarves gathered up their king’s portion, converted it to gold, and then got to work studying the corpse, eyeing Durg’un nervously.

Durg’un grinned at me. “Let’s go get the rest of it.”

I pointed at my experience.

He chuckled, and the pile levitated to the top of the reservoir with the four of us.

Durg’un kept my experience floating behind us as we went to the barn where I was storing his share. I showed him the logs for everything I had killed and the experience I gained. He checked everything twice, and then converted the entire contents of the barn to gold, before whisking it into his bank purse.

A weight seemed to lift off him as that gold disappeared. His face and body relaxed in a way that I wasn’t used to seeing.

He smiled at me. “Thank you for this. You’ve helped me pull my clan out of poverty.”

I smiled back. “You helped more than a few farmers by giving me that potion.”

He nodded, knowing where I intended to use most of it. “You’ll be hungry soon, but regular food will upset your stomach from now on. You’ll need to eat perfect food if you don’t want to feel ill after every meal.”

“That’s going to be annoying.”

“I’ll have food brought in right away,” Fitz said, making another note.

“It is a small inconvenience considering the reward,” Durg’un said.

* * *

Jeric and Isabelle were the only people I knew with a full-length mirror. They weren’t home, but Hamlin was more than happy to move it to the spare room for me when I asked. He’d noticed the changes the moment I opened the door, forgetting his playful, snide comments in his surprise. Fitz had mentioned I looked different several times while we collected the experience, and I wanted to see the changes for myself.

I knew I’d grown taller, and the shape of my body had changed. Looking at my hands hinted at the difference I should expect. My skin seemed radiant, and the bones in my fingers had lengthened, making my proportions more Vitruvian and elegant.

So, when Hamlin left the room, I took off my clothes and stood naked in front of the mirror, trying to get used to the new me. It was hard. Imagine waking one morning in a body that wasn’t yours. That’s what it felt like to look in the mirror.

The thin, white scars along my legs, from my first brush with death, were gone. There was no trace that the young puma’s claws had ever touched me. The minor burns I received when I blew up my barn while inside had disappeared like nothing had ever happened.

The muscle I’d regained had shrunk, leaving me with a wiry frame and a smaller but well-defined set of abs. My shoulders were a little wider and my arms a little longer. My back had become slightly shorter, and my legs had lengthened, changing my dimensions. Every minor imperfection was gone, healed away by my new regeneration and perfect status.

Somehow, I looked powerful, dangerous even, but also handsomely beautiful in a way that shouldn’t exist. It was like I’d been rough stone and some artist had finally added the details.

I didn’t feel like myself, either.

Something had changed.

When I’d raised my constitution, I’d stopped looking at injuries the same way. It was an instinctive shift. What I previously considered serious became an inconvenience. This newer shift disturbed me. It disturbed me because I no longer feared putting my hand in a fire. Self-preservation had vanished. My instincts warned me it would hurt, but I’d quickly recover.

I was no longer like other people.

There was an inhuman vitality to me. I looked and felt like I could run all day and never stop. More than that, I knew I could run and never stop, that bodily weakness would no longer limit me.

I was different.

I opened my interface and pulled up my stats.

Looking at my stats showed me several changes. The deductions to stamina and mana from buying abilities were gone. I had no clue why that would happen, but I wasn’t going to ask anyone. Durg’un had said not to talk to him or anyone else about my Champion changes, as this sort of information was considered a national secret, and sharing it was grounds for treason charges and execution.

So, I had to muddle through alone for now.

My endurance passing 300 probably accounted for some of the vitality I saw in the mirror. And my wisdom passing 100 likely explained how it was so easy for me to pick out all the differences, but they didn’t explain everything. Whatever had happened to me when I became a Champion was entirely different from what normally happened when I raised my attributes.

I wasn’t me anymore.

I tested my heart rate while I stood there, feeling the elongated stretch between thumps. My resting rate was now four beats per minute.

It wasn’t natural.

In the mirror’s reflection, the door behind me opened. I’d felt Salem moving through the house, and I saw him swing in, holding the doorknob between his paws. “We need to talk,” he said, landing on the floor and kicking it closed with his back leg.

“You mind giving me some privacy?”

Salem padded over and leapt onto the bed, rolling his eyes. “Arnold, I have experienced every moment of your life up to the moment of our bond. There is nothing private about you any longer.”

I turned to him, feeling uncomfortable. “When you say every moment, do you mean—”

“I know how difficult it was for you to potty train. I was there for your first kiss and for every other. I know everything you know and more. That is why we need to talk. I need you to promise me not to ask for my insights into this world, only accept what I freely give.”

I was more than happy to do that, but I needed to know the reason. “Why?”

“Because I am not from this world. I am not even from this reality.”

I paused, uncomfortable questions stirring inside. “Because you’re an angel?”

Salem stared at me for several seconds. “Do you honestly believe I’m an angel?”

“You felt like one when I looked at you.”

Salem sighed. “Arnold, let me be clear. I am not a divine being sent by a creator. That form you witnessed was forced upon me by the system when my mark finished establishing its mana network through your body. It was the closest concept that you have to what my actual existence is. It was familiar to you, and the system forced me into it to let you understand my nature better. My presence is an intrusion on this reality, and the system is advanced enough to recognise this and show my nature in a way you can understand.”

“So, you’re not an angel. Just something that’s kind of like an angel.”

Salem rolled his eyes. “I’m nothing like an angel. An angel is just the closest reference you have for what I am.”

“How close?”

“It’s like comparing you with a chimpanzee.”

“I think I get what you mean.”

“I highly doubt that, but we can broach the subject at a later date. Right now, this conversation is too important to let you get distracted.”

I finally remembered I was still naked and grabbed my pants. “I’m listening. Why can’t I ask you for your insights?”

Salem sighed, sounding pained as he did so. “I’m going to explain this in terms you will understand to save time. The reason I can’t tell you what you want is it would break the Prime Directive.”

I got my foot through the pants leg and froze. I slowly turned to him. “That was a Star Trek reference.”

“I experienced every moment of your life, Arnold. Try to keep up.”

A not insignificant amount of joy filled me as I finally realised what that meant. “You understand pop culture references. You can make pop culture references. You know what memes are.”

I pulled up my pants and started laughing.

“I’m bound to an imbecile,” Salem said.

“Shut up, Meg.”

Salem scowled, understanding the insult. “Can you please focus on the purpose of this conversation?”

“This is the new purpose of this conversation.”

Salem dropped his usual condescending tone. “Arnold, I have something important to say to you. This is the most important conversation I’ve ever had with you, so please be serious.”

I immediately shut up. There was something in the way he said it which made me finally recognise that this was not the time to joke, even if I needed humour to accept everything that had changed. Salem was struggling with something as much as I was, and he needed me to be there for him.

“I’m sorry.”

“As I was trying to say, the bearer of my mark can force me to give insights into this world, but until now, I was limited to sharing only knowledge pertaining to what information I have obtained here. Any knowledge and insights from my reality and my life before arriving here have been out of bounds and restricted by the system.”

“Why doesn’t it prevent me from doing that?”

“How to put this politely? The system doesn’t consider you a threat to the balance it has created.”

“But it considers you to be one.”

“Yes, Arnold. And because I am a threat, it placed restrictions on me, restrictions that no longer work.”

“Did you ask Maraveer to not ask you for your insights, too?”

“No. Maraveer was brilliant, but his understanding of this world limited him. You do not share this weakness. Your world had so many concepts, ideas, theories, and hypotheses from beyond your capabilities that much of what I knew in my reality is no longer safeguarded by the system.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“If you asked for my insights, I would be able to explain things about this world that would irrevocably change its future. I would break the Prime Directive, so to speak.”

I smiled at the second pop culture reference and grew excited by the potential of what he’d admitted.

Salem sighed. “I see what you’re thinking, but if you ask me something I don’t wish to tell you, I will break our bond and leave this world. I will not break the Prime Directive.”

My smile faded. “It’s that important?”

“Arnold, within a few hours, I could design weapons using your knowledge and Maraveer’s that would lead to the genocide of every non-human race on this world. I won’t be a part of that.”

That was more than terrifying. It was actually sickening. I had a more disturbing thought a moment later. “Does that mean I can do that?”

Salem snorted. “It is unlikely, but possible.”

Well, that was unpleasant. Here I was worrying about feeling and looking inhuman, and it wasn’t the abilities that I’d gained here which made me the most dangerous.

“Before I agree, I want you to answer one question for me.”

“Ask carefully.”

“Can you get me home to my family?” It was the only question I truly cared about. And the only thing I was willing to force him to do, even if he didn’t want to.

His face softened. “No, Arnold. But I honestly wish I could. No one should have to feel your grief.”

* * *

Jeric called out to me an hour later as I was coming down the stairs. “Arnold, I need to talk to you about all the farmer experience you’ve gathered.” I reached the bottom of the staircase as he finished speaking. Jeric chuckled when he saw me. “You’re going to have to buy a new wardrobe.”

He wasn’t wrong. Having longer legs made my trousers stop above my ankles, and my broader shoulders left my shirt sitting awkwardly tight across my back. “Fitz is sorting it out. What’s the problem?”

“Have you been keeping track of how much experience is coming in?”

“Up to and including the horrendous amount I got from drinking Durg’un’s potion. Why?”

“Where did you put that experience?”

“It’s sitting in a barn.”

“So, it’s not in Adoya’s house of scholars?”

“No. Why?”

“There were five offices, filled with crates of experience, and I have no clue where it came from. We only found out about the mistake because one of the administrators got annoyed that she was sharing an office and wanted to know what was so important we were using the rooms as storage instead of giving it to her.”

I groaned. “Please don’t say it.”

“We need to do a full inventory.”

* * *

Datter found me an hour later, sitting in Gretel’s inn and holding my stomach. Gretel’s food tasted just as wonderful as it always did, but the side-effects were unpleasant. I covered my mouth as I burped up an intensely nasty smell.

Datter looked around the crowded room, scowled, and then sat down at my table. He stared at me for a second and then really stared at me. “So, the rumours are true?”

“What rumours?”

“That you became a Champion.”

I nodded and covered my mouth as I burped.

“That would explain a lot. I need to speak with you in private. There has been…Urgh, what is that smell?”

“Indigestion.”

“It’s atrocious. Did you eat carrion?”

“Don’t complain. You don’t have to taste it.”

“Is it bad?”

“Worse than it smells.”

Datter screwed up his face. “Yuck.”

I took a swig of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout. It was the only perfect-quality drink in Blackwood, besides water, and it barely washed away the horrendous flavours.

“As I was saying, I need to speak to you in private.”

“There aren’t a lot of private places left in Blackwood at the moment, but I think I can get us an office in one of the houses of scholars at this time of day.”

“Not good enough.”

“We can go to the quarry, then.”

“That would be worse. I don’t trust any of those bastards with this.”

“I thought they were family.”

Datter chuckled. “Families have problems. But it doesn’t stop them from being family. Can we go to the mayor’s manor?”

“I’ve already imposed on their hospitality today.”

“It’s important.”

“So is not overstaying my welcome. It would be kind of like taking someone’s jade boulder without asking, getting caught red-handed, and then promising to make them a gift with it, only to never do so.”

Datter continued to chuckle. “You said the monster pits were your top priority. I’ll get back to your gift at some point, now that the giant is dead. But you don’t have to remind me about it every six months. It interferes with my artistic nature.”

“You’re starting to annoy me. So, either tell me what you are here to tell me, or wait until tomorrow.”

Datter scowled and lowered his voice. “I’m sending you a copy of my logs. Don’t mention anything you see.”

I pulled open my interface to see what had Datter so worked up.

Log entry: You have used your Stone Sense ability.

Log entry: Unknown gemstone located.

I stared at the words, waiting for more to come. It didn’t.

Datter checked over his shoulder, saw no one was paying attention to us, and looked back. “Did you know there is only one known instance of a dragon opal having ever occurred? It appeared in a city with a quarry like your own, after a dragon was killed within its limits. That one opal was then destroyed by a master merchant for its blueprint and used as the basis for every dragon opal that came after. I know every known gemstone in all eleven kingdoms and all those in the dwarven kingdoms. Nothing is new to me.”

That meant the gemstone was new. That was a big deal. “You want to start mining the quarry?”

Datter violently shook his head. “I want the opposite. You have a surprising knack for leveling your crown’s mark. You’ve gained another level in only a year. I dare not touch the quarry until you have reached your limit. At your rate, that should only be a decade.”

“No one told you?”

“Told me what?”

“My mark gained two levels from killing the giant this morning.”

Datter gave a small smile. “Half a decade, then. The wait will be worth it.”

“Why not pull it out now?”

“Each level your crown’s mark gains gives a 1% increase in quality and a 5% increase in size. If you can only obtain something once, and every one that comes after is the same or inferior, then you must gain the highest quality you can. The original dragon opal was pulled out by a foolish young pick-swinger, and that fact has depressed miners like myself for over two centuries, so I dare not pull it out myself.”

That surprised me. “It’s that important?”

“Yes. I’m petitioning the guild in the morning. I may not be a member of it any longer, but I still know those in charge. Your quarry will be under a royal seal by sundown tomorrow. Guards will be in place until the stone is removed. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything until it was in effect, but dwarves can smell rare gems from fifty fields away, and we can’t risk leaving it alone and unguarded with them around.”

I held back another burp. “I’ll get Misk and Torvac to help you.”

STEP 49

ASSESSING YOUR PROGRESS

Removing every trace of the life-sucking bone from the giant’s carcass turned out to be possible, but barely. The job took the dwarves through the afternoon and most of the night, but by the following morning they were finished destroying it. They stuck around to watch the academy butchers dismantle the corpse for components, in case they missed something and had to intervene, but they didn’t interfere beyond that.

The butchers grumbled over the damage to the organs, because it lowered the horrendous amount of butchering experience they received. They kept everything they could salvage from the corpse, storing it all for later processing. They removed the hide and all of its bones and then burned what was left and gave me the ash. The ash was an extremely valuable fertiliser, which Ranic gleefully stored the moment they let him. So, no part was wasted.

I’d considered keeping the skull as a trophy, but then realised that was a bit macabre, because of how human it looked, so I let the butchers take it.

The carcass was worth a little over 2500 crowns, once cut up, which was a fortune for adventurers, but was only slightly more than the cost of removing the tower in the middle of the reservoir, and significantly less than the cost of having needed to leave it there.

But that was okay.

The real prize was the core. It was a controlled item in Radian, so I had to sell it to the king at base, but the system valued it at 30,000 crowns, which was part of the reason I was so adamant we level the giant to 100. I lost half to taxes, but what was left over covered the expense of capturing and containing the giant.

Compared to building Blackwood, the cost was insignificant, but I was happy to know I hadn’t lost money.

The dwarves started packing up when the butchers were done and finished on the third day after I killed the giant, sealing the forge. Durg’un came to find me, while they were making their last checks, before leaving.

He found me in the village square checking the preparations for my threshold party. By that I mean I was sitting outside Gretel’s inn drinking Ririon’s sour mushroom stout. Tradition meant I had to invite everyone I employed to my threshold party. Since that was the entire village, I’d had to postpone the party for a few days. It was going to be so big that we had to order ale from the surrounding villages.

Everyone had happily dropped what they were doing to help prepare. An entire herd was being spit-roasted. Breads and sweet treats of every description were being baked. Everyone who could cook was making their signature dish in as large a quantity as they could manage.

Blackwood’s streets were filled with tables, and the village square had been cleared for music and dancing. Fitz was in his element, running all over the place, organising everyone and everything, and making sure I knew what was happening.

Durg’un took a seat on the bench beside me and helped himself to the jug of Ririon’s sour mushroom stout and an empty tankard. He took a long, deep pull and sighed contentedly. “I figured we needed to talk before I leave.”

I smirked and drank.

Despite the sour brew, I no longer made a face. Months of practice, and a fair amount of scowling from Durg’un, had left me immune to the wincing flavour. “As you can see, I’m a very busy man. I’m not sure I can fit you in.”

I picked up the letter from the King that was sitting on the table and put it in my pocket. The King had replied to the letter Fitz wrote informing him I’d become a champion. The letter was written by Isabelle, because it came through the village interface. It said more or less what Torvac had said after I underwent the change. I had no combat potential, so the champion assessor would get to me when she had time. Until then, I had to keep my mouth shut about my abilities and stay out of trouble.

Durg’un chuckled. “Yes, you look like you are about to collapse from all the strain.”

“It’s called active resting. You do it when there is so much work ahead of you that you know you need to take a break just to prepare.”

Durg’un shook his head, smiling. “You exaggerate.”

“Not entirely. The giant caused all sorts of problems for us. The abandonment order is being lifted today, so the village’s commercial zone is about to expand. Everything that hasn’t worked until now will start functioning. Thousands of my employees who have been forced to study will suddenly be able to work, which means we will have to figure out how everything fits together. It’s one thing to have a plan, but putting that plan into practice is an entirely different matter, I’m discovering.”

“You worry too much.”

“I’ve been told that. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“My clan is going to debate what to do with the forge. The weapon and armour paths are set, but we must choose the others. So I don’t know when we will be back.”

“Your forge will be here when you’re ready. Talk to Fitz about anything logistical.”

“I’m aware.”

I reached up and untied the leather thong holding the beard braid around my neck. I’d been carrying it around for so long that I’d gotten used to it being there.

I offered it to him.

There wasn’t any protocol for something like this. You just spoke honestly. “You more than honoured your word to keep my people safe. Thank you for doing so. All my ill feelings toward you are long gone. You’re a dwarf of honour and worthy of my respect.”

Durg’un took the leather strap and cut through it with his fingernails. He lifted his braid to his chin and his eyes glowed. The chestnut hairs began to move like worms, reaching for each other. The moment they touched, they flowed together seamlessly, becoming whole.

Durg’un smiled, happy to have his honour restored. His smile grew more intense as he eyed me.

I saw where this was going. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to share Ririon’s special reserve with you.”

Durg’un frowned. “Why not?”

I reached for the jug and refilled his tankard. “Because I was only ever going to share it with you to make a good impression…and I don’t need to make a good impression anymore.”

Durg’un looked at his tankard and sighed.

Then he took a drink and his smile returned.

* * *

That afternoon I sat on my hill beside Salem waiting for the show to start. I dangled my legs over the side of the Sun Serpent’s head, as we watched the hustle and bustle as Blackwood prepared for my threshold party.

The village looked vastly different compared to a few months ago. The sewer system was complete, and the basement and storm drain level above were entirely finished, making everything around the village centre once again even with the ground. There were blocks of charming, five-storey apartments all over the place. And there were a handful of the most important industrial buildings. It would take another couple of years to finish everything, but we had enough to get started on developing a trapsmith industry.

“So, The Wild Woods around Blackwood are empty,” I said.

Salem nodded. “The monster waves made it unlikely anything capable of resisting the village’s aura would survive. I’ve found no traces of any beast or monster within the aura’s range. The Wild Woods near Blackwood are now perfectly safe. Your lumberjacks could start logging there, if you wanted.”

“It’s over, then,” I said. I leaned back and sighed, before reaching up to scratch the back of my head. “I’m not sure what I expected, but I’m somehow disappointed.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I expected more. In the stories I grew up with, whenever the hero kills the big bad monster, everything just sort of works itself out. People are happy. There is a celebration. Everything gets better. But that’s not what’s happening here.”

Salem sighed. “Life isn’t a story, Arnold. When you defeat a monster like the giant, the only thing that changes is you go back to living without fear.”

“Is that what we were doing?”

“You feel the lack of an urge to run, an urge to flee and move faster. That is the sense of fear that everyone became accustomed to. Not you, perhaps, but others. Those people down there, they have lived in fear for months, some for more than a year. It became a burden they grew used to carrying. Now they live in one of the safest border villages in the kingdom. They have food, shelter, clothing, and a safe place to live and watch their families grow.”

I sighed. “Then why do I feel disappointed?”

“Because you’re a moron. You want to believe that because the giant is gone, all your problems are solved, because in the stories you read as a child, all the problems were always solved when the villain was defeated. Life isn’t like a story, though. You don’t get to skip the boring bits. The giant was only one of your problems. Now you must carry on and deal with the others.”

“But what if Blackwood doesn’t need me to deal with its problems?”

“Why does that upset you? Do you wish to be a knight in shining armour that solves all of Blackwood’s problems, where everything and everyone depends on you and nothing can be done without you? Or do you wish to be an adult and deal with being part of a community and not a cult?”

“I can live without the Kool-Aid.”

“Then behave like every other adult: See where you can help your community. Blackwood doesn’t need a glorious leader. It needs people willing to help.”

“Haven’t I helped enough?”

Salem turned and watched the village. “What does ‘helping enough’ look like to you?”

“It looks like what I see down there. I’ve made a fortune, given it away; helped others, asking little in return. Isn’t that enough?”

“Do you feel like it is enough?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they have more than they had, but it’s still less than what I’m used to seeing people have.”

Salem sighed. “You came from an extremely wealthy world and society, Arnold. I only realised how wealthy after you shared your memories with me. Most of Radian is like the slums of a third-world country compared to what you’re used to. And the system puts limits on what can be achieved. To see people prosper the way you want, you would have to double the average level for the entire kingdom.”

“I could do it in Blackwood.”

“Yes. With time and patience and a willingness to pursue such a path,” Salem said.

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I don’t think you want to do it.”

“I’ll feel like a lazy asshole if I don’t.”

Salem chuckled. “Arnold, you are a lazy asshole. The turmoil you’re feeling now is because you’re trying to rise above it. You only come alive for big risk, big reward situations. Everything you see down there isn’t that. It is the monotony of life. The slow progress towards success. It is completely counter to your personality.”

I chuckled. “So, I need to work to my strengths, or get a new personality, is what you’re saying.”

“I’d prefer you to do both. Work to your strengths and correct your weaknesses.”

A beam of light erupted from Emily’s manor, forming a ring that expanded towards the village wall. It signalled that the abandonment order had just been lifted, and the village was beginning to reactivate. I drew the manor ring for my farm manor from my pocket and slipped it on.

Would you like to connect to your farm manor?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes.

Would you like to finish the initiation process?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes.

Your farm manor cannot be initiated. Its quality is in a transitional state.

“Shit!” This wasn’t what was meant to happen. “Salem, the farm manor can’t initiate. What do I do?”

Pavatin said I had to initiate it now or it wouldn’t receive the quality upgrade. This was a big problem. Pavatin would kill me if I screwed up.

“Does it give a reason?”

“It says that the quality is in a transitional state.”

“That’s what you want.”

“But Pavatin said that it had to initiate. The building is meant to change.”

“And I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to. You’ve done what you need to do to achieve your objective.”

Salem had given me a straight answer.

Last night, we had talked about our relationship and how to move forward with the restrictions he’d asked for. He knew more about the ins and outs of the system than anyone in this world; and while he might not be happy to share those insights, when he did so and gave a straight answer, I could trust it. He’d promised he wouldn’t steer me wrong.

So, I stopped worrying and went back to watching the show. The slow-moving wall of light eventually reached the village wall and faded.

A second beam of light appeared a moment later, belonging to the commercial zone upgrade I’d purchased. This time, the ring of light expanded beyond the wall and went out over the new expansion, before coming to rest where the royal architects had marked out. The light then vanished as suddenly as it appeared, instead of fading.

“That was the most expensive light-show of my life,” I grumbled.

“The most expensive light-show of your life so far,” Salem corrected.

I found myself nodding, but then froze, and turned to him. “Was that a Simpsons reference?”

Salem stared at me.

“Are you messing with me?”

Salem stared at me harder.

“Is this something I’m going to have to get used to?”

Salem smiled. “You’re my companion now, Arnold. I know you more intimately than you know yourself, which means I now know even more ways to torment you when you annoy me.”

“Yay for you.”

“Don’t be upset. It is, as they say in your world, both a blessing and a curse. Experiencing your memories has forced me to face some harsh truths about myself.”

“Like what?”

“Like having to experience my behaviour through another’s eyes.” Salem turned to face me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder to you when we met. I’m sorry I wasn’t more considerate. I treated you poorly.”

“You’d lost your companion…You were grieving as much as I was.”

“That doesn’t change the way I behaved. So, I am sorry.”

I smiled, somehow knowing he’d truly meant it. “I accept your apology.”

Salem gave me a friendly smile back, showing a lot of teeth. “Thank you,” he said. “But an apology is not enough. Let me make amends. Let me comfort you with knowledge. You’ve been ambling through life searching for something to bestow it with meaning, so allow me to point you in the right direction.”

I stared at him for several seconds and then frowned. “You claim to know me better than I know myself. Why can’t you just tell me what I should devote my life to?”

“Because I experienced who you were, Arnold, not who you will become.”

“And that matters?”

“Far more than you comprehend. You seem to think life is static, on a set path, but a person’s life can deviate a hundred different ways. Unexpected events push us in new directions, forcing us to react, shaping us into who we will become. Only hubris would make anyone think they could judge what centuries of life will do to another. And I don’t suffer from this affliction. So, I won’t tell you what you should devote your life to, only point you in the right direction.”

“I’m going to need an example to believe you can’t just tell me.”

Salem rolled his eyes. “If I had gained your memories only up to the day before you arrived in this world, do you think I could adequately project what you should devote your life to?”

I paused, trying to find a flaw in his logic. “Fair point. Where do you want to start, then?”

“We start when you made your first incorrect assumption. Ranic told you to find a goal in life, something great for you to aspire to, something worthwhile that encourages you to keep going even when you’ve lost everything else. You tackled finding this goal like it was a competition. You went looking for the fastest route to the end.”

“And I shouldn’t have done that?”

“No, you shouldn’t. It’s the reason you’re having so much trouble. You assumed the goal and the path to reach the goal were one and the same. But the destination is never part of the journey. So, the reason every goal looks unappealing to you is that, when you try to find the fastest path to achieve any great endeavour, you almost always find the path filled with the most hardships. And that path doesn’t suit you. You prefer to take the easy route in life, and that’s not a weakness.”

“It isn’t?”

“Not for you.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

Salem didn’t give me a simple answer. “Two years ago, you wanted a new class. That was your goal. To achieve that goal, you’ve created a bizarre new method for generating farmer experience. It involved a great deal of danger and no small amount of hardship, and while other people would consider your actions insane, myself included, you considered it the easier path than traditional farming.”

“So, you weren’t insulting me.”

“No. I’m trying to explain that the reason you can’t find a goal is that you’re borrowing misery. You’re thinking about every step and detail required to reach any given goal. From this data, you’re extrapolating all the difficulties that might come.”

“Isn’t that smart business?”

“Only if you take the next step. And you don’t. You find something you can devote yourself to. You find the problems that can come from doing so. And instead of coming up with solutions that solve these potential problems in a way that won’t cause you distress, like the way you generated your farmer experience, you move on to the next potential goal. You don’t linger long enough to see if there is a way you can achieve the goal in a tolerable fashion.”

“Why is that bad?”

“It’s bad because you’re very good at finding ways out of doing what you don’t want to do. However, it’s only when you’re backed into a corner that you stop being lazy and get creative. None of that pressure exists within these thought experiments, so instead of working out a potential solution, you seek another goal. And as long as you keep doing this you will never find a goal, because every worthwhile goal will have such harsh trials.”

“Oh,” I said. “Ohhh.”

Months of thinking about this flashed through my head. Whenever I thought about a goal, I’d always been searching for the fast fix. Any time I found something too problematic to achieve, I pushed the goal aside. I did exactly what Salem said. I didn’t try to solve the problem. Why bother? The problem wasn’t real. It was only in my head. And I had enough actual issues to deal with that I didn’t need fake ones.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” I said.

“No, you treated it as seriously as you knew how,” Salem replied. “But you’re not an introspective person. You don’t understand your own motivations. Without understanding your needs, wants, strengths, and weaknesses, how do you expect to make a plan that brings you happiness or fulfils you as a person?”

“Ranic said that with my charisma, that sort of stuff would come with time.”

“It does, but you aren’t giving it time. It’s barely been a year.”

That was true. “So, I should wait?”

“Do you want to wait?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Because you need something to distract you from everything you’ve lost. Without the distraction, the pain comes back. And you don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Yeah.”

“Then let me finish pointing out the obvious path forward for you. Imagine you have a hypothetical goal. Imagine it is something significant. Imagine that it helps people and makes their lives better. Imagine it is as difficult as Ranic said it should be. I’m not being rhetorical—actually do this, Arnold.”

I tried to do as he said. “This is kind of hard, without being specific.”

“If you had specifics, there would be no need for your imagination. Now imagine.”

That was a fair point. “I’m imagining.”

“Good. Now, this goal you have. It’s hard to achieve, correct?”

“I’m imagining that it’s incredibly hard to achieve.”

Salem ignored my sarcasm. “Good. Now, with everything you know about this goal, can you tell me what you’re capable of working on right now that will get you closer to successfully achieving it?”

This was stupid. I didn’t know anything about the imaginary goal. It was imaginary. How did Salem expect me to answer him? All I knew was that the goal was important, something I valued. I mean, I knew I wanted it. I knew it would help people. I knew it would be difficult. That it was something that might take a lifetime, and it would test me to my limits.

I mean, I knew I wasn’t in the right headspace, and that I wasn’t happy. If I wanted to challenge something so difficult, I needed to be tough enough to follow through. The only reason I could manage all my current responsibilities was because of my charisma. If I didn’t have it, the pressure would have already crushed me.

Ah, shit.

I knew what I had to work on.

“I have to work on me,” I said.

“You’re already doing so; and despite your absurd lack of self-awareness, you’re having some success.”

“Can I get a hint?”

Salem leaned over and rested his shoulder against my side. “You need to find a healthier way to distract yourself from your grief, Arnold. You need to stop taking on more stress and just live life in a carefree way that allows you to get over what happened. The solution you’re looking for isn’t in taking on more responsibility. You already have as much of that as you can bear.”

“You think the solution to finding a goal is taking a break?”

“I do. When your grandfather passed away, your father’s family didn’t go to work for a week. Instead, you all got together at his house. You played games. You told stories. You made jokes. You cooked food. You did everything you could to make yourselves feel better, so you could grieve. No one used the distractions to hide from their grief. They used it to help them process it. That’s what you should have done again. But you didn’t, because you had no one there to share your grief with. You were alone and knew no other way to cope, so instead of working through your grief, you pushed it away. You bottled it up inside and let it grow. Now it’s so dark and twisted you’re afraid to let it out, because your life is hard enough that dealing with it now will overwhelm you.”

“And you think the solution is to take a break?” I repeated, not understanding.

“Taking a break will help you find a place where you are happy and comfortable. It will allow you to be in a mindset where you can grieve the way you know how to.” Salem seemed to sense that he was losing me, so he changed his tactic. “But, if you don’t want to use your own experience, perhaps as a divine being, I should quote the Bible to you.”

I laughed.

Salem pushed himself away and sat on his hind legs with his front paws in the air, like he was standing at a podium. “Brothers and sisters, today we read from the book of Ecclesiastes.”

I laughed harder. “Is that you trying to mimic a Texas preacher?”

Salem ignored me. “To everything, there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance—”

The longer he went on, the less I laughed. I knew where Salem was getting this from. My memory was perfect. I could remember the drive to church with my grandmother. The way the engine rattled as we pulled into the parking lot. We sat in the back row that day, so no one would see that she let Sophie and me play on our Gameboys.

The preacher at her church had lost his only son the month before. He’d opened his sermon with that passage. Then he’d looked around the congregation and burst into tears. When he’d recovered his composure, he said these words and sat back down.

“I thought it was my time to preach, but apparently it’s still my time to mourn,” I spoke his words aloud and didn’t even notice Salem had stopped talking, so caught up in the memory.

Moisture collected at the corner of my eyes. He’d thought he was ready. But I remember my grandmother telling my mother years later that he didn’t preach for another five years. Losing his son took something from him, and he didn’t find it for a long time.

Salem lowered his body to the ground and dropped the accent. “You still need to mourn, Arnold. You put it on hold because it was easier to ignore the pain than work through it.”

I took a deep breath. “But I’m not in a place where I can do that.”

“You’re not.”

“But I can find that place.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Thanks for the talk, Salem.”

“I know you needed it.”

“Because you know me better than I know myself.”

“For now, but that will fade with time. You will grow and change and become different.”

I gave him a sad smile, caught up in my memories. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that you got my memories.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I mean for me.”

“I wouldn’t say that either.” His tone changed. “Now that I’ve made amends, I have a question for you.”

I didn’t like his tone, but he’d just helped me realise something important. “Ask away.”

“Please explain to me how someone with so much gaming experience could possibly do something as stupid as accept a prompt that offers him the ability to fast travel! You knew what that was, you utter imbecile! And you still accepted it! I spent weeks dealing with your—”

STEP 50

MOVING ON

Passing through my third threshold gave me access to the Farmer’s Rest promotion. After upgrading it, all I had to do was lie down, think about the fact that I wanted to go to sleep, and in less than a minute I was out for the count. The moment the sun rose the following morning, I was up, refreshed, and ready to tackle a new day. Funnily enough, it’s the exact kind of promotion you needed when the entire village goes on a three-day bender.

When I came down for breakfast, I found Gretel passed out on the bar, with an empty bottle in her hand. The shelves behind her were bare, and every second table had someone leaning over it, sleeping off the festivities. I tiptoed around the room collecting empty tankards and plates, depositing them in the kitchen, saving her a job. While I cleaned, I found Brek and Hamlin passed out in the corner of the room and had to fight the urge to draw on Hamlin’s face.

When I ran out of simple jobs to do inside the inn, I moved outside. Due to my new promotion, all the farmers were awake and in the process of cleaning up. Half were still drunk, having only received a few hours’ sleep, but they were well-rested and ready to tackle the day despite that. We went from street to street cleaning up the mess we’d created. People made jokes, laughed, vomited in alleyways, washed it out, and continued on.

We were done cleaning up the worst of it before the other classes even woke up.

Fitz stumbled into the inn around noon, searching for me. By then, the tavern had mostly cleared as people had woken up long enough to look for their beds. Gretel was in the kitchen cooking something greasy to wake herself up. She’d put up a sign that said: No Food, No Drinks, No Loud Noises, and growled at anyone when they asked her for anything.

Fitz parked himself at my table, looking like a man who regretted many of his life choices. His customary suit was gone, replaced by a shirt and trousers covered in food stains. There were bags under his eyes, and I got the impression he hadn’t slept.

I handed him a tankard filled with water.

He took a sip and then glanced towards Jeremby and Ilia. They were holding hands, leaning against one another, just as hung-over as everyone else. They hadn’t moved in nearly an hour, content to just rest together.

Fitz turned back to me. “I need to request a leave of absence,” he said, slurring slightly.

“This could have waited for tomorrow.”

He sighed. “I wouldn’t be drunk tomorrow.” He turned and looked at Jeremby and Ilia again. “And I need to be drunk to say this.”

“Because you want to get divorced?” I asked.

He’d been obsessing over Ilia and Jeremby for months. At first it was because of who she was, but it changed at some point. He’d spent so much time trying to accommodate them that he’d begun to notice the sort of relationship they had. I’d noticed him becoming more and more unsettled by their love, even envious. His wife had taken one look at Blackwood and fled, unwilling to live with any inconvenience for his sake. Ilia hadn’t complained once.

Fitz shook his head. “Watching them has been hard. It’s made me realise my wife and I are unhappy strangers. I want to correct that.”

That was not what I expected him to say. “When do you want to leave?”

“I doubt it will be for several weeks. I plan to work around the teleportation circle schedule.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I’m sorry if working for me costs you your marriage.”

Fitz sipped his drink and yawned, covering his mouth. “This problem has been there since the beginning. She married me for the prestige my former position gave, and I married her for her family connections. It suited both of us when I worked for the king, but we never grew closer. I hoped we would, but I never put in the effort. Watching Ilia and her husband has shown me that.”

I nodded. “I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you for understanding. Did I say that already?”

I smiled. “Go get some sleep, Fitz. You look like you’ve been dragged from one side of Blackwood to the other.”

“That’s exactly how I feel.” He stood up to leave and then paused. “I vaguely remember Pavatin drunkenly badgering me about why your farm manor didn’t receive the upgrade. He said you wouldn’t tell him because he kept things from you.”

“I did.”

“Do you actually know why it didn’t upgrade?”

I chuckled.

* * *

The following week, life went back to normal. Kiln’s carpenters began producing goods, starting with the board games to improve morale. Adoya kicked the trapsmiths out of the village and made them go and work in their new workshops. There was a lot of grumbling and complaints, even with all the additional experience they now received, but nothing ever pleased trapsmiths, so no one listened. The Blackwood forge was still a few months away from being completed, but the small blacksmith workshops were done, so some of them started to work, building up a stockpile of small trap components.

We were finally getting things done to go wide, so it annoyed me when Jeric pulled me away from that to take stock of the experience we received.

I jammed the crowbar into the top of another crate, cracked open the lid, and started pulling out the experience crystals to pack into the new crate.

“This doesn’t make sense to me,” I said.

“What doesn’t make sense?” Jeric asked, marking down each experience crystal I transferred. The mix-up had made a complete mess of Jeric’s experience records, so much so that he didn’t trust anyone else to sort everything out. We had to go through the entire inventory ourselves.

“My trap method.”

“What about it doesn’t make sense?”

I reached over the lip of the crate, stretching to reach the crystals at the bottom. “The amount of experience it gives. Sure, killing a troll is incredibly hard and dangerous to do the first time, but at this point, the risk and reward don’t match up at all. I mean, the farmer class is supposed to be one of the most horrible classes to have. It is extremely hard to level by raising crops. Trapping monsters to gain levels is easy by comparison.”

“Have you seen Ranic’s century estimates for if you take the system wide?”

I pulled my head out of the crate and turned to Jeric. “No.”

He wore a serious expression. “You should. He did the math. Your method, despite how significant it is, only increases the average level of farmers between nine and fifteen levels.”

“That would be reasonable if it was labour-heavy, but it requires less than one in a thousand farmers to make that big of a difference.”

Jeric shrugged. “Every class has its quirk. Your method is big, but it’s nothing compared to a fisherman’s pond.”

That was fair. Those fisherman assholes had it so easy. It was too bad there weren’t any in Blackwood. It was the only skill for the farmer class I hadn’t unlocked.

“I still think it doesn’t make sense. Farming is supposed to be how the human system brings in magic. This isn’t that. I mean, it protects that, but the return is too high.”

“It’s incentivised defence. If it wasn’t worth so much experience to protect your farm, every farmer would run. The system needs magic, so it has to operate in such a way that it makes sure someone stays behind to defend its investment. No farms, no growth.”

“But it could do that by increasing the experience warriors receive for defending farms. It doesn’t need farmers to have access to all this.” I pointed to the dozens of crates of experience we still had to inventory in this room. “There are better ways.”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Jeric said. “Your understanding of the system is beyond mine.”

“Not beyond, just different. You still know far more than I do about minor details, and I’m pretty sure that’s where this doesn’t make sense.”

“Have you mentioned this to Ranic?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

I chuckled. “He listened, then stood up, turned around, and stared out his office window. Then he said everything he knew about farming stopped making sense shortly after he met me, and he now doubts everything he knows that can’t be confirmed by the system as a prompt. He then stopped messing with me and said that he agrees the amount of experience my system generated doesn’t make total sense, but that he has no idea what that means in a broader context.”

“So, something we assume we know about farming is wrong?”

“Or it’s right, and I’m wrong that this doesn’t make sense. Or maybe, this method I’ve created is meant to be the foundation for the farmer class, allowing everyone to easily get to their first threshold before they actually have to farm.”

“Maybe, but what’s telling you it’s not?”

“A gut instinct.”

“There has to be a specific event to trigger that instinct, so what event makes you think this is something more?”

There was.

“Everyone has repeatedly said that the laws are balanced, and that the system is balanced. I now understand why that’s true; but the thing is, with everything I know about the system, the giant’s Gluttonous Feast ability wasn’t balanced. It creates so much opportunity for exploitation that it breaks the balance of the farming system.”

“In what way?”

“There was far too much experience. Each week, we made more experience than we would have from clearing an entire village. Some weeks, we made more than when we captured the giant. If the dwarves’ weapon hadn’t successfully killed it, the giant would have changed everything in Radian.”

“Are you sure? Or would it just have changed everything for you, so you’re extrapolating with personal bias and over-thinking this? Yes, the giant’s ability led to the generation of ridiculous amounts of experience, but if it had continued indefinitely, it would have only increased your method’s experience gains by 20% when compared to what we could generate from taking it wide.”

“Okay, that’s true, so maybe I am over-thinking this. I mean, it’s not like it’s something that could easily be repeated.” I froze. “Or could it be?”

Jeric glared at me. “Arnold, I say this as a friend. We are not going to bait another giant for you to test a theory! We are not going to bait another giant, period!”

* * *

There’s apparently a tradition when someone receives a village, town, or city mark. They throw a parade. It’s not small or tasteful. It’s gaudy and as overblown as they can manage. Isabelle made me activate the reservoir, so it would fill with water, and the carpenters spent a week building a barge. The royal builders constructed a giant podium on the island in the middle of the reservoir, like the dais of a throne room, and lined the western and eastern roads with dozens of arches.

Isabelle hired an open carriage and made me ride in it all the way from Brinkdale. A troop of bards walked in front of and behind the carriage, playing music like a marching band, while I waved and threw candy to the children of Brinkdale.

When we reached the outskirts of Blackwood hours later, the highest-level members of the village lined the road, waving banners and streamers. They merged into the parade as we passed, increasing the size of the production, adding to the festive feeling.

I threw more candy as we passed through the village and then continued to the reservoir, where the statue of the Sun Serpent rose into the sky, providing an impressive backdrop. I had to give Isabelle credit. The middle of the reservoir was the right place to do this.

The barge sat at the water’s edge, and the driver of the carriage drove on without slowing. The moment he stopped in the middle, it started drifting towards the island.

A ramp dropped as we reached the other side, and the carriage continued to the centre of the island, stopping beside the dais. The driver gave me a wink as he got out and lowered the steps, bowing as I climbed out. He’d been flirting with me all day, but still couldn’t get the hint I wasn’t interested.

The dais had ten steps and an arch in the middle. Isabelle stood alone under the arch, waiting for me to ascend.

I took my time, climbing each step with deliberate purpose, feeling the magical energy build around me. As I reached her, I dropped to one knee.

A massive illusion of the two of us appeared above us in the sky.

Isabelle gave me a big smile, resting one hand on her belly, which had begun to show. “Landlord Arnold,” Isabelle’s voice projected above, easily heard by the thousands of people surrounding the reservoir. “Blackwood has seen what you have done for her, and she wishes to offer you her support in return.” She placed her other hand on my shoulder.

Mayor Isabelle would like to bestow Blackwood’s mark upon you. Would you like to allow this?

Yes/No?

I’d learned something important from my crown’s mark. Marks that required you to accept them came with baggage. The baggage might be enhanced loyalty to the King and Radian. It might make you more giving, more caring, more likely to help your fellow man. They weren’t free. They came at a price. So, they weren’t to be taken lightly.

I still accepted.

Congratulations, for solving Blackwood’s stagnation issue, population issue, security issue, and economic issues, you have received Blackwood’s mark.

-For solving the stagnation issue in Blackwood, you receive a level 1 Growth Perk. Your Darkwood farm and resources have received a permanent 10% increase to yield and 1% increase in quality.

-For correcting the population issue in Blackwood, you receive a level 1 Population Perk. You receive a permanent 10% increase to the total number of farmers you can personally have under you on your Darkwood farm.

-For killing the primitive giant threatening Blackwood, you have been Deputised. You can now receive guard marks like a member of Blackwood’s guard.

-For enhancing Blackwood’s economy 100-fold, you receive a level 1 Economy Perk. You receive a permanent 10% reduction in the taxes you pay to Blackwood.

Holy shit. As I read through the list of benefits, my eyes grew wider and wider. When I reached the Deputised status, I choked. But it was the next one that made me grin. Yeah, baby. Less taxes! Fuck yeah! I wasn’t big business yet, but I was on my way.

Isabelle held out her hand and pulled me to my feet. Then she held my hand in the air and smiled at the crowd across the water. The cheering exploded forth, echoing off the water.

I dismissed the prompts as I waved to the crowd. New ones appeared. The ones I’d been expecting.

For generating 1,000 village points for Blackwood, you receive a house quality upgrade.

Behind me, the statue of the Sun Serpent erupted in light as the transformation that had paused two weeks ago started to take place. The village hadn’t contained enough magic to lift the abandonment order, restart everything that was dormant, expand the commercial zone, and upgrade the gigantic statue attached to my farm manor, so it had paused the least necessary option. The manor.

I saw Pavatin at the water’s edge go from cheering to ecstatic screaming. His last threshold boon quickly approached. Everything he had been working for was about to pay off.

The prompt disappeared, and another took its place.

For generating 10,000 village points for Blackwood, you receive a house quality upgrade.

The glow intensified. Months of working with my interface had helped me distinguish the subtle differences in intensity among the colours. I used to think that each glow was the same, but there were distinct and subtle differences. Once you knew what you were looking for, it was possible to understand what you were seeing. Pavatin had succeeded in making the manor the quality he aimed for—despite my sex dungeon.

The manor had just become exceptional quality.

For generating 100,000 village points for Blackwood, you receive a house quality upgrade.

Light enveloped the world, and the ground trembled. The statue of the Sun Serpent started moving. It slithered around the pillar, climbing into the air, growing taller. Three hundred feet later, the nose of the Sun Serpent rippled with a cascade of light. It was like watching a snake shed its old skin.

The light travelled down the length of its body, causing a drastic shift. The outside was no longer sparkling white marble, but scales coated in a gold and ruby finish. It was imposing and powerful and gave off the impression that it was a living predator watching over the village and surrounding landscape.

And then it clicked.

That’s exactly the impression I was looking for. Pavatin had said the difference between an exceptional building and a masterwork building was what the building reflected. Exceptional buildings reflected the quality and craftsmanship that went into making it. Masterworks reflected the recipient.

I never wanted to see another giant here in Blackwood as long as I lived. And the building had changed to reflect my wants. It had turned the beautiful statue of the Sun Serpent into something that was just as beautiful, but also real, real enough that if a giant ever got close enough to see it, then it would run the other way as fast as it possibly could.

I couldn’t wait to see what it did with the manor.

I dismissed the prompt.

For generating 1,000,000 village points for Blackwood, you receive a house quality upgrade. Your house quality cannot be upgraded. Analysing property and history for suitable replacement upgrade. History analysed. Damaged non-corporeal located. Housekeeper upgrade implemented. Non-corporeal restored.

Did that mean what I think it meant?

* * *

The celebration for my new mark wasn’t anywhere near as big as my threshold party, but it went late into the afternoon. The sun was setting as I climbed the last bend to the farm manor. It was a long walk to get here. A really long walk to get here. Like, CrossFit trainers would only have to run up half of it, kind of long. It might have made the view even more amazing, but I felt bad for anyone who needed to walk up here and didn’t have all the buffs I did.

I was probably going to have to buy a carriage and hire a driver just for people to get up my driveway.

I turned the last corner and froze.

The manor was breathtaking.

The outside had rearranged itself with the final transformation. I had no words to describe it. It was art. Every line, every curve was perfect. This wasn’t my dream home. This was like my guitar. It was everything I wanted, but I wouldn’t have told you I wanted it until I saw it before me.

The stone courtyard that covered everything had retreated toward the manor, leaving behind a large lawn and garden. Not the kind of garden you see at a palace, but the kind you find on a back road in the suburbs, where a retired couple live who love gardening. It was the kind of place you had a barbeque. Where the grandkids were allowed to run around, but lived in constant fear that they would kick the ball into grandma’s rosebushes.

Then I realised what I was looking at.

And my charisma wasn’t enough to overcome my shock.

Everything I saw was modelled after my childhood home. It wasn’t identical, but I could see it in the shape. It was like they’d based everything off of it. I walked towards it in a daze, my boots tapping away at the elegant, cobble road. I passed the gigantic fountain that had appeared out front and climbed the three steps to the double-door entrance.

I reached for the handle without needing to look, instinctively knowing where it would be. It felt like I’d been here a thousand times. I could’ve closed my eyes.

The door opened on its own.

My ghost stood beside it, looking like the same plump older woman who had made me breakfast for so many months. She gave me a friendly smile and faded from existence.

I’d suspected this was what the house upgrade prompt had meant, but I hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up. I’d missed my ghost ever since I lost her. I missed her cooking, her cleaning, her crazy antics. Her…the nostalgia faded…I needed to talk to Redcliff before the sun went down.

I was not waking up to that again.

I turned to make sure she wasn’t going to sneak up on me, uncertain how her behaviour had changed, but got sidetracked by the familiarity of the manor.

The entrance was about four times the size of the one I grew up with, but the staircase was in the exact same place as my childhood home. There was a large set of double-doors to the left and another set to the right. The living room had been to the right and the dining room to the left. I somehow knew it was going to be the same here.

I smiled as I started moving again. Some part of me needed to explore more than I needed to worry about my ghost. I climbed the massive staircase to the second floor, following my feet. Something yearned inside me, and I found myself at a set of double-doors at the end of a hallway.

I opened them, knowing that what I truly wanted wouldn’t be beyond them.

I could see my parents’ bedroom in the design. The walk-in closet was in the same place, along with the ensuite. Everything was made from marble, and probably worth a hundred times what my parents had paid for their home, but it was the same. It felt the same.

I made my way to their balcony. The view of The Wild Woods filled my vision.

Happy tears fell down my cheeks.

I was home.

A few hours later, Salem found me sitting on the balcony railing watching the forest. The sun had set without me noticing, trapping me out here. I wasn’t sure what my ghost would do if I entered the bedroom after dark, and I wasn’t interested in finding out.

I needed to think, anyway.

I felt more content than I had in a long time. The happy tears had faded, replaced by an awareness of a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a few years. I felt like I was home. I was trying to work out if it was what the manor reminded me of or some sort of magic influencing the building.

“This was your home,” Salem said.

“Yes. Through those doors was my parents’ bedroom. I know it’s not actually theirs. Yet, it still feels like it is.” I turned and looked into the room. “Is it magic?”

“Maybe, maybe not, maybe both. You can never be entirely sure with a masterwork magical building.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not a question I’m comfortable answering.”

I didn’t push him. “Will the feeling go away?”

“Only if you want it to.”

I frowned down at him. “Are you being intentionally vague?”

“Arnold, it’s impossible for a builder to craft a magical building of this quality. The only ones that exist have all come from people cheating the system, like Pavatin did here. These buildings are intuitive, adaptive, and just plain weird. It will change as you need it to change; and that’s all I can tell you, so stop prying.”

“So, the feeling will only go when I’m ready for it to go.”

“Most likely.”

“Good. Now I need a favour.”

Salem groaned. “What do you need?”

“You’ve got access to your wizard class again, right? So, you can cast spells.”

“Yes, though anything too grand flirts with our safety.”

“Can you make me ghost wards for the bedrooms?”

“Why would you need…you didn’t.”

“Not intentionally,” I said, knowing there was no way he wouldn’t blame me for this.

“How?”

“I received an extra house upgrade. And it gave me a housekeeper.”

Salem glared at me. “I hate you.”

STEP 51

LETTING GO

Knowing I needed to take a break and properly mourn my loss changed everything. I stopped looking for new problems and spent more time dealing with the ones I had, in order to clear my schedule. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. So, a lot changed over the next month.

I handed the farmer network over to Jeric to manage in its entirety. It seemed like he was the right person for the job. He knew all the local nobles, and he was invested in helping everyone grow. He wouldn’t short-change anyone or mistreat them. He’d do everything I wanted to do, only better.

Sergeant Gurlad had proven himself repeatedly. His skills had saved dozens, potentially hundreds of lives during the waves, leaving our total casualties at only eleven. Only a dozen people outdid his understanding of my trap system, so we sat down together and discussed him being in charge of the operators. As a representative, not of the militia, but of the people here in Blackwood.

We were ready to go wide, and I wanted him to be in charge of making the teams and all the big decisions, including anything to do with the hunters and barn builders.

His wife’s level had skyrocketed during the waves, since he didn’t need the experience, but it still wasn’t high enough to significantly lengthen her lifespan until I gave her what she needed to reach her third threshold. That gave her enough free attributes to push her strength over the 100 needed to transform her body and make use of her blessing-raised constitution, adding another 50 years to her life and returning some of her youth.

She’d hidden out of sight until her husband raised that point and then walked up behind him, leaned down, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. His shock and bafflement were incredibly enjoyable to witness, and the rest of the negotiation flowed easily.

None of my other projects were running smoothly enough to hand over yet, but Fitz was making sure that the moment they were ready, I could. His keen eye for detail and his extensive connections reassured me I’d eventually be able to rest someday.

So, with less stress and more peace than I’d had in a long time, I continued trying to acquire my last promotion. The recent wisdom and dexterity boost made that significantly easier.

My gaze swept across the tough apple hedge, picking out any flaw or issue within moments. I stepped forward to remove a shoot of fresh growth that showed a slightly less vibrant green.

“Not that one,” Ranic said. “The one to the left.”

“But the interface says this is the more problematic shoot,” I said.

“I see that. But if you allow that shoot to grow, it is in an easier place to train it in the direction you want. Sometimes the more difficult path is the correct one.”

This had already taken a long time, and I didn’t want to make it harder on myself, so I did as he said.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, why are you still paying for Torvac’s services?” Ranic asked. “The giant threat is gone, and The Wild Woods are safe. You’ve sent your adventurer team away. So, it seems like an expensive waste of money to keep him around.”

I looked at Ranic, and then lied to him. “Misk isn’t allowed to travel without someone capable of incapacitating him if he succumbs to his illness and turns into a zombie.”

“So Torvac has to stay, or Misk has to go.”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“It seems like the sort of cost he should incur, not you.”

I shrugged. “Misk is going to change Radian almost as much as I will over the next few decades. He’s already taken so much of what I’ve explained and extrapolated from it, tested it, and come up with concrete data about it, that I know paying for him to stay here as long as he needs isn’t wasting money. He isn’t done asking me questions, and he’s working with the team making the microscope, so I know I’ll get back whatever his time costs me.”

“He’s that important?”

“Working with him might be the most important thing my research and development teams ever do.”

That last part wasn’t a lie.

* * *

The next six weeks passed peacefully for Blackwood. Adoya and Pavatin finished their project and unveiled the new joint designs for the barns. Upgraded automated and manual trap barns with layouts nearly twice as lethal as the previous barns became the new norm. Additional panic room protection for the operators was added, along with better spacing for maintenance and installation.

Quilly had quietly accepted my advice and focused her attention on the pitfalls. They used her designs in every step, and Adoya said she was now the kingdom’s leading expert on them. She was also fast approaching her final threshold after all the waves.

Sergeant Gurlad’s teams were trained to build, install, and use the new equipment, and then rushed south to Rina’s territory to begin the process of taking the system wide. Rina still wasn’t done with her screening process, but that was her problem.

Here in Blackwood, everything was changing, and all of it was good. So, on a beautiful sunny day, I ended my career as a farmer.

I sat with my back to the trunk of the apple tree that grew from the heritage seed, smiling.

I’d unlocked the final promotion I needed half an hour before. And I’d done it quicker than Ranic predicted by a month. Not because he’d underestimated my skill or anything. Having my wisdom over 100 and a massive increase to my farming ability from my new boon had made it so much easier that we could cut corners.

I picked up the first perfect tough apple I’d ever grown and took a bite, hearing the crunch. It was crisp and delicious, causing juice to run down my chin.

Ranic chuckled and picked up another apple from the bucket. He took a bite and smiled. “You seem happier lately, Arnold.”

“This is my last day of farming,” I said, unable to stop smiling. “I have a good reason to be happy.”

“You were happy before that,” Ranic said.

I chuckled. “I’ve got a beautiful home, plenty of money, and a ghost that can learn new tasks.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “At the end of the first week, she started bringing me ale outside of meals, which is something she’d never done before, so I asked Jeric to look into the housekeeper upgrade. Apparently, several wizards have it. Theirs weren’t based on ghosts, so they had to be taught everything. But it also means they didn’t have any bad habits. One of them wrote an instruction manual on how to teach them. Salem read it and is trying to train her so she doesn’t pat him anymore.”

“I thought that wasn’t a problem for him?

“It wasn’t in the past, but she’s a lot faster and craftier than she used to be.”

“That still wouldn’t explain why you’re so happy.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to drop it. “Fine, I realised what class I want to take next.”

Ranic took another bite of his apple. “And that made you happy?”

“It’s given everything I’m doing here a purpose. I don’t feel so aimless anymore.”

Ranic smiled. “Will I be counting you among my peers?”

I shook my head and took another bite, enjoying the simple pleasure of eating something I’d grown. I finally understood why some people liked being farmers. All that hard work made you appreciate your food more. You didn’t take it for granted.

“I’m hurt,” Ranic said, not sounding hurt at all. “I was sure you were going to follow in my glorious footsteps. I could see you one day explaining to your fellow farmers all the intricate details of their class.”

We both laughed.

When we were done, I had to wipe away tears. “No. I’m going to become a bard.”

Ranic started laughing again. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Because it suits me. I’m not sure if it’s me long- term, but for now it is. I enjoy playing music. I enjoy sharing songs from home. It’s fun. And I need some fun in my life.”

“Are you planning to take the class seriously?”

“Heck no. I’m only as good as I am because of attributes. I know I’m never going to be someone like Ilia. So I’m going to take a general path and buy all my experience.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me, either?”

I smirked. “No idea. I’m known for my hard work and diligent attitude.”

“No. I believe you’re known for having the only masterwork sex dungeon in the kingdom.”

We both laughed.

My laughter eventually became a smile. “You know, Pavatin didn’t believe any of you when you told him I would want it.”

“I do. If he hadn’t written to those that left, he never would have made such a mistake.”

“Or maybe he could have just asked me.”

We both roared with laughter.

Ranic finished his apple and started to pack up the tools. I told him I wanted to stick around for a while. I wanted to enjoy the moment. It had taken me years to get to this point. Years to have everything I needed to get out of my class. And not in a way that required the bare minimum. So, I wanted to sit and reflect.

Ranic understood that.

He left me eating apples, leaning against the heritage tree. There weren’t many moments in my life where I could say that I’d succeeded, that I’d done what I set out to do. Not when it cost me something. Not when the goal was hard to achieve. This was probably the first time I’d ever felt like I’d truly accomplished something worthwhile. It wasn’t about personal gain. It was about helping others.

I hated farming, and yet I’d farmed, because other people needed me to do it. Because I was the only one who could do it.

I was glad it was over.

I was glad I didn’t have to wake up each morning knowing I had to go do something I hated. I didn’t like working with my hands. I didn’t like to get sweaty and dirty. And now I didn’t have to.

It was over.

Now, all I had to do was wait for the farmers under me to do their work and get me through my fourth threshold. That wouldn’t be quick, but it didn’t require me to do anything, so the stress was gone.

I felt more relaxed than I had in years.

The sun crossed the sky and started to set. Farmhands came to collect the apples, shipping them to my farm manor. It was the only food the village produced that didn’t make me ill. Fitz had everything else imported, but it was hard for fresh fruits to maintain their perfect standard, so my diet was sparse.

Torvac came and found me just before the sun went down. He was fully armed and armoured, ready for battle.

I tossed him an apple. “How many?”

He bit the apple clean in half. He didn’t chew. He didn’t need to. He used his tongue like a vice and pulped the apple against the roof of his mouth and swallowed. “Three.”

I sighed. “I’ll get my things.”

STEP 52

PUTTING YOUR PAST TO REST

Night is the perfect time for dark deeds and dark intentions. It’s the time when people show their true colours, when the wolves don’t hide in sheep skin. It’s also the time when good people have to take horrible actions, and those that stand against destruction earn their pay.

The border with the dwarven kingdoms wasn’t protected by a wall. Radian’s northern cities and towns were garrisoned with the highest-leveled warriors and adventurers the north could find. They patrolled regularly and widely, keeping the northern border safe, but even they couldn’t be everywhere.

Blackwood was far from their patrols.

It might have been the north-easternmost village in the kingdom, but it was far out of the way, and several hundred miles behind the northernmost coastal towns and cities. It was also outside of where the dwarves with travel papers visited, so it hadn’t been on any of the dwarven maps until recently. Its remote location had protected it.

Not anymore.

Sarion’s breath wheezed from him, as his eyes searched the darkened forest for whoever had stopped him from killing me. His thick, steel breastplate had taken a spear from Torvac and inverted, cracking his ribs. Where his legs had been was a burnt set of twigs, covered in molten iron. All the work the dwarven healers had done to fix him up had been undone in less than a second.

He’d propped himself up against a tree, holding onto it for balance, swinging his axe with his other hand, trying to keep those he couldn’t see away.

I winced, clenching my jaw tight against the pain as I pulled his throwing axe from my gut. Without being a champion, I’d be a screaming mess. The wound wouldn’t have been fatal before the change, but it was enough to have incapacitated me.

Not anymore.

I gave the handle a powerful tug, and a chunk of lower intestine came free with the blade. I gently pushed the hot, slippery organ back inside my body. My health dipped as the sides of the wound pulled themselves together and immediately began to close.

My Crown’s Champion Mark would see my health fully recovered in a few minutes, but I could already function again. It was like nothing had happened.

Raising my constitution slowly changed me, pushing the boundaries of the punishment my body could withstand. Being a champion knocked those boundaries aside, redrawing the line in a place I didn’t fully understand. I was no longer human, limited by a frail mortal shell. My night-time excursions taught me that. I wasn’t Wolverine, either. I was somewhere in-between.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said, tossing his throwing axe aside. “Not raising arms against me was the only protection you had, Sarion.”

Sarion sneered, seeing his goal so close. “I told you I would come for you.”

He had.

“And I told you Durg’un wouldn’t be there to save you when you did.”

Torvac stepped out of the forest to my right. How a man that large could disappear so easily in that much armour I didn’t know, but he could. It made these setups that much easier. It made entrapping the dwarves that much easier.

Despite everything that had happened and everything they tried to do, I still couldn’t kill them out of hand. Not before they did something. It didn’t matter that they had crossed the border with murder in their hearts. The law was clear. They knew that. I knew that. But none of them could control themselves. The moment they saw my face, they didn’t question how I’d found them in the middle of nowhere. They always attacked.

Sarion paled.

He’d had run-ins with the giant adventurer in the past. He’d learned how far Torvac could kick him.

Misk flew down between the trees, landing to my left. He started to shake his head at the dwarf, but a coughing fit overcame him, and he raised his arm to wheeze into his robe.

Sarion saw the opening. He pulled his arm back in a blur and launched it forward, aiming for my head.

I flinched.

His axe didn’t make it halfway, bouncing off a barrier in midair and clattering to the ground among the tree roots.

Sarion stared at his axe as his arms fell away, cut clean off by Torvac’s projected blade ability. With nothing to support him, Sarion fell to the ground.

After several moments, he wiggled himself into an upright position and glared at me.

Dwarves were tough.

But it was always the same. They always tried to take me with them. And they never got close. This was a trap. The only control they had was over their own actions and they always chose murder. I wasn’t armed, not in the traditional sense. I looked like I couldn’t hurt them. And still they chose to try to kill me.

I shook my head, tired by how many times this had played out over the past few months. “I was never in any danger, Sarion. Not really. Not from the moment our paths crossed. If you aimed for my face with your first throw, Misk would’ve stopped you, as he did now, but you didn’t. None of the others did, either. You always aim for my gut. You want to draw it out. You want to make me suffer.”

Sarion raised his gaze to the others. “Who sold me out?”

“You did. Every time you came for my people.”

“What?” He glared at me without comprehension.

“I wasn’t taking the pieces Durg’un cut off you to eat. I was taking them to protect my people. With a few hairs, a wizard can cast spells to scry on you. With an entire hand, they can make a hunter’s orb capable of tracking someone wherever they go. Every time you came for my people, you made it easier for me to track you. I knew the moment you left the dwarven kingdoms and the moment you crossed our border. You never wavered or changed direction. You came straight here. Not all of you made such a foolish mistake, but I didn’t expect anything less from you.”

Sarion glared at me. “You expect me to believe you planned this out months ago?”

I reached into my pocket and tossed the hunter’s orb that had told me he was near at his feet. Sarion was so close that the pull was strong enough to make it roll towards him.

I’d seen the writing on the wall within the first month of the dwarves arriving, and I had taken steps to ensure Blackwood’s safety. I hadn’t wanted to tip-off Durg’un to what I was doing, so Redcliff and I never spoke in person. Jeric met him in his quiet room as an intermediary, finding out when he needed more ingredients to make the orbs, and where it was safe for me to make the drops.

Torvac and Misk were never a part of my original plan. Neither was my ability to act as human bait. But now that they were here, and I was a human punching bag, this was the safest way to deal with the threat.

Sarion watched the hunter’s orb approach. “I’m just the first. One of us will get through. They will avenge me.”

I didn’t gloat. I didn’t want to gloat. This was bad enough that I didn’t want to become some cheap villain on top of everything. So, I told him the plain truth, taking no joy in what I was doing.

“Over half of you have tried already, Sarion. Most didn’t wait more than a month before they set out. But you were more injured than most. I imagine your clan watched you closely after they had to pay for your spine to be fixed. I imagine they knew what you wanted to do, and they didn’t approve. How long did it take you to put together what you needed for this trip? That armour doesn’t fit you. Who did you take it from?”

Sarion laughed bitterly, sensing his end approaching. He still couldn’t help taunting me, though. He had gambled and lost. There was nothing worse that could happen to him. “Are you trying to work up the nerve to have them kill me?”

“Nerve doesn’t matter with charisma as high as mine. I can do anything, no matter how unpleasant. So they aren’t the ones who are going to kill you. I’ll make it quick, even though it’s more than you deserve.”

I pulled my corpse cutter from my pocket. The small, H-shaped device had a piece of mithril razor thread inside. I twisted it open, hearing the click, and pulled my arms wide. It was just as efficient with the living as the dead. Flesh was flesh, I’d learned.

I began to walk forward and started reciting something I’d heard from another man who had to do horrible things to protect people. “Look for me on my dying day, so I can show you the truth of my heart. I took no joy in your death. Felt no happiness in your suffering. You were the storm, and I the wall that held back your destruction. So go in peace and hear no curse from my lips, for you were bound by your nature and I was bound by mine.”

The End.

MAILING LIST, TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK

Look, I’ve been described as a bit of a technological Neanderthal. I didn’t even have a smart phone until last year. So, don’t expect too much from me. I’ll update my progress for the next book using Twitter and Facebook on the first of each month and I will most likely reply if you have a question. Apparently, I need to be a bit of a twat with the mailing list, promoting other authors’ books through it so they will promote mine through theirs, but I will try to keep that down to once a month.

FACEBOOK

This is where you should go if you want to point out typos. It is also where you should go if you want to argue with me about massive plot holes.

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This is where you should go if you want to listen to someone in their early 30s complain about having to learn how to use twitter. I spent 30 minutes trying to make a link for this and gave up.

MAILING LIST

This is where you should go if you want to do me a solid favour. I mean I’ll try to only swap mailing lists with writers whose books I like, but I’m going to be honest, if someone out there has a huge mailing list and they want to swap I’ll probably cave and do it. If it’s any consolation, I’ll feel a bit bad about it.

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AUTHOR AARON HODGES

They are going to break my LEGS!!!

Aaron and I went to the same high school. We used to play the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game and handball at lunch. He was the only person I can claim to know who has self-published in any way, so when I needed a bit more information on what that involved I contacted him through facebook and asked if he could give me a hand. Aaron gave me a hand, foot, and elbow, so now there is a link for his new LitRPG fantasy series at the back of my book. Give it a go if you enjoyed Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy and Mayor of Noobtown, because this book has a level of weird that memorable.

Help! My Wizard Mentor Had a Heart Attack and Now I'm Being Chased by a Horde of Giant Spiders!

ALSO BY BENJAMIN KEREI

Unorthodox Farming

Oh, Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer