Same things, different perspectives

-3rd day of AC, 03.04.1052-

-Leaf’s POV-

The 2nd of April went by quickly. Before either of the two knew it, a new dawn appeared on the horizon, waking them up from their slumber. Getting up, Leaf immediately felt the somewhat humid air gathering around. Taking a look at the sky, she frowned.

‘It’ll rain today.’

The dark gray clouds had a bright, silver outline, but their imposing size made it seem like they were going to crash down any second.

Leaf never liked the rain. It was almost the worst weather for her, second only to snow. She didn’t enjoy being both wet and cold, as it more often than not ended in her sneezing her nose off. Still, she didn’t say anything to Travis. If he wanted to rush forth, she wouldn’t hold him down.

The time went on and on, minutes chased by hours, as they kept going on the somewhat flat, cobble road. Not many people went by, which honestly, she found a little surprising at first. Trying to count, no more than 30 heads came by in an hour, traveling in either direction.

‘It seems that something really is happening.’ she frowned a tiny bit but did her best to keep her expression hidden from Travis. She reminded herself of her talk with Delius just yesterday. Using an excuse of going to the bathroom, she contacted the man, but he didn’t clear the issue up much. Just like her, he wasn’t aware of Red Crown’s movements in Forna, and that made said movements that much more suspicious. Although he did promise to look into it, Leaf couldn’t help but feel a little… left out.

‘I know what I signed up for when I became a Wayfarer, but it still sucks.’ she put on a pouty expression, looking to her side. ‘Be it a war or a catastrophe, you have to go, and can’t expect to always be informed enough. And when a rapid change happens, you’re the first one to be hit.’ She shuddered a little. When organizations went to war, it was never pretty. Unlike real conflicts between countries, fights of hidden groups happened in shadows, far from anyone’s eyes. Whenever any sighting of a fight was seen, it was only described as ‘fights between hunters over loot from monsters’. This was, indeed, the go-to cover-up story when working out of sight was needed. And this was the reason why Leaf insisted on taking the main road. The more crowded the area, the lower the probability of an attack coming.

‘If Red Crown wants to stir up problems with others, they will first attack any Wayfarers or Scouts in the area. I’ve already stepped far enough from Black Lotus’ territory. All they need to do is just kill me and Travis, and they’ll easily cover it up for the public whilst declaring war on us.’ she felt her arms shake slightly at the thought.

Still, looking at the man in front of her, she felt her lips curve upward ever so much.

‘He seems more capable as days pass. Just two weeks ago, he seemed to tire out after a few kilometers of run, and now he runs even more without breaking much of a sweat.’ she didn’t forget to give him some pointers from time to time about being a forbidden class. After all, after Guill, they would go their separate ways. Leaf sighed lightly at the thought.

‘I wish I could convince him to come with me. I really don’t want him to become my enemy the next time I see him.’ she looked at him with a somewhat worried expression, if only for a moment. What the future held was uncertain, but she already had enough experience to predict what might happen to him soon. ‘With his class changed, he’ll probably try to get away from his teacher. However, if that spy woman knows about his change in class, then so does his teacher. Without question, they’ll try to get him on their side. If their acts keep up, we’ll wound up becoming enemies in no time at all. A year, two if we’re lucky.’

Yet, as she spoke with him, he didn’t seem to falter one bit from his conviction. He wanted to finish his quest, no matter what. ‘This must be why he spontaneously changed to the 'Psion' class. Strength of his will must be tremendous to not shake one bit.’ she thought. But, of course, she didn’t know the real reason why he wanted to finish the quest.

‘Though... something’s definitely changed since 2 days ago. Ever since he went into Goldhilt’s mansion and out, there’s something different about him.’ she traced back her memories.

It seemed to start when he suddenly sobbed in the middle of a room in the mansion. Out of the blue, he fell to one knee and seemed like he was… shaken deeply. He shook out of his weird state of mind quickly, but since then, his normal training routine changed. Leaf had been observing his training before, and noticed how now the man was pushing himself harder than before. Moreover, training combat-ready abilities… was a little weird for a Psion like himself. Psions were not supposed to be melee fighters like what he was shaping himself to be.

‘…is it because of what happened?’ she wondered, joining him in a hunt after watching for a short while. ‘Something in the mansion, or maybe the mansion itself, reminded him of someone he couldn’t protect? And he’s trying to grow stronger in combat because he… cares about me?’ she blushed ever so little at the thought. The two had already forgone the entire ‘trust points’ she had insisted on when they met. Leaf already felt like she could trust the man, and Travis didn’t seem too worried about showing his back to her anymore. It seemed that, despite everything, he was really growing fond of her. Leaf smiled a little to herself, pulling the bowstring again and shooting another arrow.

‘In the end, it seems that I’ve made a friend.’ she glanced at the man, who was visibly tiring himself out by now, having killed a dozen or so monsters within a few minutes. Without a single second to stop, he kept on running around, swiftly taking care of anything that dared make itself visible to him. ‘And the way he’s hunting… quite aggressive. I like it.’

-Meanwhile, Travis’ perspective-

‘Goddammit, RALS wants to kill me.’ he thought with a slight glint of outrage as he swung with The Pacifist and followed up with his regular dagger. How many beasts was it? Rats, slimes, goblins lurking around the trees? He’d lost count a while ago. But (un)luckily, RALS was keeping a very accurate trace of his results.

'NOOOOO, 10 damage short!’ he slammed a nearby tree with his weapon before letting out a tired sigh. Today, the System seemed to be playing tricks on him with the newest Daily Quest. Once again, two out of four conditions he could do for base completion were standard exercises he could put up with. Although their number had increased from what was in the last days, he didn’t fret. With his increased stats, completing them was easy enough. However, what made his heart sink was the latter two requirements.

[…

Within 5 minutes, deal at least 660 physical damage to any number of targets (0/660 |00:15/05:00)

Deal a total of 8450 damage (3626/8450)

…]

At first, he didn’t think much of these conditions. At the end of the day, how hard could it be to find enough monsters to fulfill the first requirement? That was his initial thought.

But then, he went forth and tried to complete it. It was useless.

Monsters, while somewhat abundant, had HP no higher than 50. This was proof of their rather low level. But what really infuriated him was their responses to his slaughter. Slimes had too little intelligence to realize, and rats were too mad on their own, but other monsters soon started retreating, seeing a new king of these groves. And with only two kinds of things to hunt around, Travis wasn’t able to fulfill the time-reliant condition, not yet at least. If this kept up, his only alternative would be hunting for as long as it took to finish the fourth one. He grimaced slightly at the thought.

‘If the additional reward were good, I’d be happy to do both, but it’s just a mana stone, and a small one, at it.’ he groaned at the thought.

Mana stones were, more or less, a form of crystallized mana (hence the name). The process of artificially creating one was a little complicated, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be done within the boundaries of an alchemist’s room in just a few days (and they were usually made in bulk, too). Some places, like dungeons, had mana stones formed within, though such occurrences weren't common. The real problem, however, was its usability. Using a mana stone wasn’t as simple as just sapping mana from it. To be properly utilized in mana potions, they needed to be processed further, with equipment that Travis wouldn’t get his hands on anytime soon. The only 2 other uses that were known for those things were blacksmithing and golemancy.

‘Using a mana stone in making a weapon is a feasible process. The problem is, it’d take a few days, and I’ll be on the move for the foreseeable future. Maybe if I find a suitable place near a town to level up, I could commission a piece of armor, but that’s a huge ‘maybe’.’

He slashed a few times at a slime, killing it within seconds. Then, he quickly ran between the trees, looking for his next victim. As he kept on hunting, his thoughts diverged toward the other possibility.

‘Golemancy… Hmm… I’ve never dabbled much into the topic. I might do some research when I’ll be able to, but for now, if I manage to get a mana stone, I’ll just sell it. I think it should fetch about 50 silver, which is nice.’ he nodded to himself. ‘It’s better than cluttering my backpack.’

From the moment he received his first physical reward for finishing Daily Quests, Travis knew that sooner or later, he’d end up having to deal with inventory management. Up until the Competition really began, he was rather fine with his current backpack. It wasn’t quite as bulky as Leaf’s, but it had enough storage to last him both to and from Autir.

But then came the silly box from Rulebreaker, and took up almost all the space he previously had. ‘If I could’ve at least opened it, it wouldn’t be such a problem. But no, it only opens to give me things.’ he grimaced slightly at the thought, bringing up the memory of what advice he received that day.

3. Recognize your strengths

[Think about something for a minute. How easily can a mage start fighting with a sword? Or how easily can a city guard begin ruling a country out of the blue? Not very easily, can they?

The thing is that every class, beginning from Classless, up to the highest of dragons, has limitations on what they are.

For example, ‘Classless’ seems useless, but it’s actually the most versatile class of them all because it has one important ability that literally no other class has: it can change freely. If you’re Classless, you can change to a variety of different classes without much effort. You just need a teacher to let you grow into a class, and you’re done. And sometimes even that is not required.

On the other hand, other classes cannot freely change (unless it’s back to Classless). Most of them can evolve after you reach a certain level threshold, but even then, their options are finite and related to their base forms.

You have to recognize what your class is good at before you can truly utilize its potential.]

‘…I mean, advice be advice, but I already knew that. Seriously, it’s common knowledge. You’d imagine someone affiliated with gods would know such things…’

…

‘Though… Rulebreaker still has a point. So far, I’ve treated my class as just Psion… but it’s far more than that. <Manifest Reality> is a prime example. An ability to reshape reality… for example, making a knife appear in my hand when I lose hold of it… the problem is its costs. I’ll need to bolster my Wisdom and Intelligence quite highly to make use of it. Maybe by level 60, I’ll have enough stats to make it work. Speaking of levels… it seems I gained one. Didn’t even notice when. Oh well, it’s always good to receive stats.’ he thought, putting all 5 into his Sense. The effects… were negligible, but present. Had he not concentrated on the feeling, he’d have not even realized increasing this statistic did anything at all. Travis sighed a little at the thought. ‘I should hurry. The clouds seem darker by the minute.’

-2 hours later-

Travis leaned his back on a tree as Leaf sat next to him, getting her backpack nearby. Droplets of water were dripping from the plant above them and sinking into the mire, quickly creating mud beneath the leaves and pine needles. The scent of moisture was hanging low in the air, coming near them together with a somewhat chilly blow of air.

‘In the end, I managed to finish the base condition, but not before the rain started.’ Travis thought, combing through his hair, wet and glistening in the faint light coming from between the clouds.

He glanced over to Leaf. The woman was sitting in a similar position to himself, but she was visibly drier than himself; unlike him, she didn’t hesitate to hide under a tree as soon as the first droplets made their way down. Feeling his stare, she looked back at him and chuckled after a short moment.

“…?” he frowned slightly, puzzled.

“Nothing, it’s just…” Leaf said and then shrugged. “You kept going on, and… well, now you’re all wet,” she poked a finger at his shoulder. “I’m getting cold just looking at you. Aren’t you cold?”

“…not really,” ‘I guess I got so fired up during the hunt that I don’t even feel the cold now.’ Travis thought. “Any chance it’ll stop raining soon, you think?”

“Hard to say. The clouds are pretty dense, and scouting nearby, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference visible,” Leaf replied, yawning ever so little. “You should probably change clothes. We might be sitting here for a while.”

“Yeah, probably wiser idea than getting a cold,” he nodded, swiftly removing his soaked shirt whilst getting up. Within a few seconds, he was removing his pants as well, intending to get changed as soon as he could.

Without skipping a beat, Travis placed his wet clothes on the ground and got hold of his other set from his backpack. However, as he was pulling new, dark pants over his legs, he felt, sensed something hovering over his shoulder, near a spot he really didn’t want anything to be. Within a split second, he made a rapid turn and a step back, looking at Leaf, who was quickly retracting her hand, her surprised expression giving away a glint of inquisitiveness hidden underneath her sapphire eyes.

“…what are you doing?” Travis asked, frowning ever so slightly. Although his voice was neutral, Leaf couldn't help but feel a bit of aggression seep from his words.

“S-Sorry, just… got lost in thought and let my curiosity take over.”

He didn’t reply, instead walking over to his backpack and pulling out a tunic of a dark color to cover his chest with. Then, he simply sat down, seemingly deciding to ignore her for some long seconds.

Leaf immediately sat down near him but made a bit of space, feeling the slightly tense atmosphere arise for a moment. Folding her hands together, she could only count seconds tick by as the sounds of water falling all around became louder and louder. A drop or two made its way near them two, indicating that they’d need to soon figure out something to place above them to prevent themselves from getting drenched.

“…So…” she started saying. “Do you, uh, want to talk about that?”

“…not really,” Travis replied in a rather quiet, but also stern tone. "It's nothing special anyway."

“Err, you know, I got some good herbs for seared wou--“

“Don’t,” he cut her off. “Just don’t,” he repeated, looking somewhere into the forest, away from her.

“…yes.”

‘…All of a sudden, the mood’s broken.’ Leaf thought, curling her legs up a little. ‘And the way he reacted, too… it’s like a wounded animal. What happened that he got a burn scar like that…?’ The elf woman pondered for a long moment before deciding to stop. ‘It’s no use forcing him if he doesn’t want to speak with me about it.’

Meanwhile, Travis was sitting silently, trying to not think about the situation. Deciding to fill in his time a little, he reached into his backpack, bringing out the map of Forna.

'Things don't look too bad in terms of time. At least, they don't seem to.' he thought, glancing at the main road. 'By the 17th, I'll be back in Silvana. Within the Quear mountain range, Lodiz seems to be the closest at barely 100-something kilometers. Since I'll be traveling alone, I can make it in 2 days, once I put a few points in Endurance and Agility. Unless I have to do something like today, that is...' he snorted quietly at the thought. 'Haliz is only about 25 km from Lodiz, but the monster level in there will be much higher. 50, maybe 60, considering the elevation almost doubles. But I'll worry about that once I get to Lodiz. Planning is good, but objectives can change over time.'

He traced his finger on the map for a while, taking in the locations of all the different locations. Every time he came across a city or location that he knew, a new surge of memories surfaced, and he paused to try and quell them.

'It's becoming easier to handle it,' Travis conceded. 'It's still a lot to take in at once, but... at first, it seemed like an unstoppable wave in the ocean. Now, it's more like a wide, wild river. Still difficult, but more manageable nevertheless.' he took a deep breath before turning to Leaf. The elf woman was sitting with a hand raised slightly, one of her crows sitting in her palm quietly. Her gaze seemed to be aimed at the bird yet unfocused at the same time. Travis had already seen Leaf do this type of gaze before; it was a clear sign that she was sharing the vision with her minions.

'I wonder how long will this rain keep up.' he thought, hiding the map in his backpack. 'I'd rather not have to do a Daily Quest with a downpour on my head.'

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