“Come in.”
The door swung open, and Tristan shuffled in. As usual, he was sporting his oversized brown robes and had his long, black, wavy hair pulled back, highlighting his sharp jaw and long lashes. We’d known one another for over a year, and he’d changed a ton since we’d met. He’d gone taller, his shoulders had broadened a little, and when he did show off his arms, they were toned. His face had matured as well. He didn’t look like a teen anymore. Instead, a whole adult was walking into my room.
However, his going through “the change” over the past year, whatever that meant, didn’t seem to be doing him any favors when it came to his manliness. If anything, he was looking more feminine than ever. He was exceptionally attractive with that sharp jaw and high cheekbones, but it was a similar kind of otherworldly beauty like Na-Ya’s. He didn’t have even a wisp of a beard either. Poor guy.
That was okay, though. A lot of women liked the cute look. For them, he’d easily be a ten. I realized that he’d definitely be my type if he were a girl. I shook my head.
What a weird thought.
“Hey,” Tristan said as he plopped down on my bed.
“What’s up?” I tried to be as cheerful as possible. He seemed more tense and moody than usual.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, come on.”
He sighed. “I just…” His eyes grew distant. “I’m bored. You know?”
“Yeah, I do.” I’d been feeling restless for a while now. I’d been here thirteen months, sixteen if you counted the three months I was in a coma, and I was getting antsy. In fact, I’d already been making plans. “What do you want to do about it?”
He huffed and threw himself back on my bed. “I have no idea. Maybe we should train harder.”
That’s all we did. “I’ve been thinking about something for a while.”
His sapphire eyes met mine. “Which is?”
"Let's get out of here, go do a quest."
He laughed. “Come on. Don’t tease me.”
I didn’t respond.
“You’re serious.”
“Yeah. Let’s go on a quest.”
He shook his head. "I can’t do that… We're not really supposed to..."
“Do what?”
“Leave. I have duties here. They need me. Plus, I’m almost a real priest. If I leave now, then what?”
"So? I'm not a priest here, and you’ve said a dozen times that you’re stuck in place. Why not get out of here with me?”
“Because… Well…”
He was grasping at straws, trying to find any reason to leave his comfort zone. I wasn’t about to have any of it. “You said you've already completed all the prerequisites. What else can you do here? Stagnate? Maybe we need to get you out of your rut." I was getting pumped. I felt like I could handle an easy job or two. How hard could it be? And with Tristan at my side, we’d be unstoppable.
"I don't know..."
"Come on! We'll explore, see the world, fight monsters, all of it. We can be heroes! It'll be great!"
"I wouldn't call walking to nearby villages seeing the world..." His words said one thing, but his eyes said another.
“So? Is sitting at the temple seeing the world?”
“No…”
“Come on, Tristan. You and me, the open road. We can do this.”
He sat up on my bed. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“And you want to do it with me?”
“There’s no one I’d rather travel with.”
His face reddened a shade. "Idiot…” He sat for a moment just staring at me for a long moment. Then, he smiled. “Okay. I'll talk to Arden, then Lady Varga, he thinks it's a good idea. Then, I’ll get back to you.”
“That’s not good enough.”
His brows scrunched together. “What do you mean? I said I’d get permission.”
“No. You’re not gonna ask. You’re gonna tell them.”
“Tell them what? That I’m leaving with the temple’s resident dumbass on a trip to nowhere?”
“Yup.”
“And where do you want to go, oh great noble hero?”
I pulled out a map that Arden had given me months before. “Here.” I pointed to a dot to the northwest of the temple. “It’s a city called Galden up in the mountains. Why don't we go over and see if anyone needs any help?”
“And what if we get in over our heads?”
“We won't take on anything too extreme.”
“And if we do?”
“Then we’ll deal with it.”
He looked at me sideways. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. “I can't stay in the temple forever. I'll go crazy. I think you feel the same way."
He sighed again, threw himself back on my bed, and stared at the ceiling. After a good five minutes, he finally spoke. "Alright, let's do it." He sat up and held out his hand. “Partners?”
I took his slender hand in mine. “Partners.” We shook hands, and I felt a smile spread across my face. “This is gonna be awesome.”
A broad smile split his too-pretty face.
“Go talk to them, will you?”
“On it.” Tristan shot out of my bed and headed to the door. A moment later, he was gone.
***
"How's it feel?" Na-Ya was standing next to me, her small glowing hands pressed onto my hip. I could feel the warmth of her healing light through my clothes.
"Much better. Thank you, Na-Ya." This was it. My final healing before we left. Tristan had ended up asking anyway, but he managed to get permission from both Arden and Varga. Both of them actually seemed excited. However, before we were allowed to go, they said Tristan had to meet with Na-Ya and Varga privately every night for a week. Then, Renard returned, learned about our plans, and subjected me to an endless gauntlet of sparring and training. It’d been a week, I was sore as hell, but I’d passed my trials, and Tristan had finished whatever he needed to do. We were ready.
Na-Ya lifted her hand and smiled."Good. Now keep up with your exercises when you're on the road, and don't do anything too crazy out there.” She put her hands on her hips. “And I expect you to keep Tristan safe, and don’t be gone longer than a month, two at the longest, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, and don't let Tristan do anything too foolish. Always trying to prove herself to you, that one is.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I smiled at the elf. Something she said prickled at my mind, but I was too excited to think about it. "Don't worry. I’ll make sure we make you proud. And we'll be back before you know it. I promise."
"You better be. It won't be the same around here without you two." She patted my shoulder and left the room.
When my door shut, I stood up and stretched. After all the training and study, I felt like a new guy. I'd finally just about caught up to Ro-Saleh in physique, if not technique, and I was probably more fit than I'd ever been. All the training and the daily exercises had paid off. I looked into my little mirror and flexed. I was pretty bangin' if I did say so myself. I still didn't have all that much feeling in some of my fingers, and I needed to stretch every day to keep my leg limber, but I was back, baby. And now I was about to go on a real quest, I was gonna be a goddamn hero. Goddess damn?
I heard a knock on my door. "Come in."
Tristan's black hair entered first, followed by the rattling and clanging of our gear. When Lady Varga agreed to let us go, she promised to supply us with gear for our journey. They’d scrounged up some old gear that had been sitting in the temple's store room. It looked old, but it was a start, and that's all we'd need. "Don't help or anything," he grumbled as he weaved through the doorway and into the room. I decided to obey his command and let him struggle.
After he got all the way into my room, he huffed and threw the gear onto the floor. “Ass.”
“What? I listened to you for once.” My eyes met the two things I wanted more than anything: a decent-looking sword and a sturdy wooden shield. I snatched them up, buckled the sword around my waist, and slung the shield on my back. Looking in the mirror, I struck a few poses. I looked like a real hero. Or an adventurer at the very least.
"Damn, you actually look pretty good," he said as he pulled a large two-handed mace out of the pile. Hooking it on his back, he looked in the mirror with me. “We look good!”
“Of course we do! We’re us.” I looked him over. With a big mace on his back, he looked like a real priest. “I can see it now: Tristan the Priest, bonker of heads, master of the light."
Tristan got a far-off look in his eye. I could tell he wanted this as much as I did.
After a couple more minutes of admiring ourselves, we got started with sorting the rest of our gear. There was some dried food, a cast iron pan, some firestarters, a couple of cloaks, some toiletries, and a couple of blankets. He'd also grabbed a bundle of rope at my request and a few other useful things that I hadn't thought of.
Packing went smoothly. Once we were nearly done strapping down our packs, I pulled out a few books, some ink, a notebook, and a few quills. Arden was insistent that I continue training my mind since I hadn't quite finished my studies yet. Primarily, I was to focus on translating a historical text about monsters in the fourth era. He said it would be good for me, and I'd admittedly learned a lot from the work. I didn't mind either; it was a great way to pass the time and keep my brain sharp.
Before long, we had our packs packed and our gear strapped, and we were ready to roll. I threw my pack over my back and immediately struggled with the order of pack and shield. I spent a minute figuring it out, then I was ready to roll for real. Looking over at my companion, I saw that he looked equally ready. We nodded to one another.
I gave a last look at my room. The bed was made, the sheets tucked under the corners the way Lady Varga liked. Everything was as I’d found it. The only indications that I lived there were my old clothes, the ones I arrived in, which sat neatly folded in the corner, and a few books that I’d already read on the desk. Na-Ya said she'd keep my room tidy for when we returned. A wave of emotion washed over me. This was my little sanctuary for the last year. I'd grown pretty fond of it. But, adventure called.
Later, room.
"You ready?" Tristan was waiting outside my door.
"Yup. I am now."
“You sure? I can give you two some space if you need.” A little grin split his lips.
“I’d rather you watch.”
He rolled his eyes. “No one wants to see that.”
I laughed. “I’m ready.”
"Good, you big ass. Let's go."
I walked out and closed the door behind me. The latch gave a final satisfying click. I didn't know what lay ahead, but the door seemed to encourage me to go find out.
***
Our feet crunched in the dirt as we marched along the beaten trail. We'd left the temple hours before, and, after the initial giddiness of being on the trail left us, we had traveled mostly in silence. Mostly because Tristan had forgotten his canteen, forcing us to double back after an hour of walking. He was tired of me picking on him for it.
Wanting to break the silence, I asked the first question that came to my mind. "So where's your hometown again?"
He hesitated for a long moment. Was he really going to pout the whole way? "It's a small town called Musskin. It's just north of Llyn, about a half day."
"Should we head out there?" It was probably worth going to the smaller settlements. From what I knew, adventurers frequented the larger towns, so there wouldn't be much work for newbies like us.
"Nah, there's a resident hero who takes care of most of the problems in the area. He’s a douchebag, but he keeps the monsters at bay."
I laughed. I taught him douchebag after we got to know one another better. He loved the word and peppered it into his speech whenever he could. "Alright, so where do you think it's best to go? I'm all for suggestions."
"I think Galden’s a great idea. In two days, we'll hit a crossroads.”
“Do you think it’ll be too busy in a city for a couple of nobodies like us?”
“Probably, but that might be a good thing. Galden’s a bit of a pit, so we should have some luck there. With it being a run-down mining town, there aren’t as many adventurers willing to work for cheap. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Plus, we'll need a few more provisions anyway, and there's a big market there." He adjusted one of his pack's shoulder straps. It kept slipping and was driving him nuts. I was happy I chose the older-looking pack.
"Sounds good." Looking around at the forest all around us, a different thought came to me. "You ever slept out in the woods before?"
"No, you?"
"Yeah, I used to camp a lot with my dad. He loved the outdoors." I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I think he just liked being away from my mom.”
“That bad, huh?”
“She drank a lot.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. He wasn’t much better, at least to me. He was better with my sister.” A memory popped into my head, but I pushed it away.
“Did you ever see any monsters when you camped?”
“No monsters on Earth, remember?”
He shook his head. “I always forget that. So, what’s the worst animal you’ve seen, then?”
“The worst I ever came across was a black bear."
"Bear?"
I hadn't learned the word for bear in this world's language yet, had I? I thought for a while. Ah! "Urso."
"Ohhh, yeah, they're all over." He smiled, his sapphire eyes twinkling as he did. He really had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.
I coughed. "The book Arden gave me said there's some seriously scary stuff out here, and we're not exactly a powerhouse yet. Let's hope we have an easy trip north."
"Yeah, don't worry. These roads are patrolled all the time by adventurers, and the Legion comes through once a month. We'd have to get pretty deep into the woods to find anything scary."
I thumbed my sword’s hilt. "Good." I hoped he was right.
“Hey, we should party up. That way, we can see one another’s skills and keep track of each other.”
“We can do that?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you learn about the system?”
“I did, but that was back when I didn’t really know the language. I was mostly winging it.”
He laughed. “Okay, well, visualize the system.
I stopped walking and closed my eyes.
“Really?”
“Shush. This shit’s hard.” The words slowly appeared in my vision. I could see my stats. “Okay, I can see it.”
"Good, now imagine a party screen.”
"How do I do that?”
“Just think of the word ‘party.’”
The words in my head started going haywire, flipping between screens over and over again. "How do I make the screens stop changing?"
“Focus.”
I cleared my head, and the words stabilized in my mind.
You are not a member of a party.
“Ok, I got it.”
“Now visualize me and think of my name.”
Do you want to invite [Tristan, Human Aspirant] to your party?
“Yes.”
Tristan, Human Aspirant, joins your party.
Tristan, Human AspirantLevel 4 | Talent Level 1 | Job Level 2Strength ◆ | Endurance ◆ | Coordination ◇ | Quickness ◇ | Focus ◇ | Will ◆◇
★ Human 1
- [Boundless Potential]
- {Locked}
★ Aspirant 2
- [Hear the Word]
- {Bless}
I read his stats. “Hey! Why's your level higher than mine?”
“Because I’m better, duh.”
“Not for long.” Grinding my teeth, I saw words appear in my head again.
Name your party.
I looked over at him. “It wants us to name our party.”
Tristan looked back at me and grinned. "You do the honors, fearless leader."
I thought for a moment, and a name came to me. I willed it to the system, and the words in my head shifted.
Tristan groaned. "Really?”
“What?”
“The Awesome Duo is a terrible name."
"Then you should have come up with a name yourself!" It wasn’t that bad of a name.
"I would have if I knew you'd do such a shit job at choosing!"
"Too late. I love it."
He grumbled for the next twenty steps. "I'm changing it next time we form a party."
"Hey, I never said I was good at naming things."
"Well, I won't assume again."
"Deal."
"Thank you." He adjusted his pack strap again.
I waited until he was finished. "Just watch, it'll grow on you."
"Don’t count on it." He shook his head.
We got quiet for a while. But, as we walked, questions came to me. “Does everyone have classes?”
Tristan cleared his throat. “Yeah. Even if someone can’t visualize the system, everyone but travelers like you at least has a racial class. It doesn’t mean they have skills or anything, but they’ll generally have the passives.”
“What do people do if they can’t get a class? Are they stuck being weak?”
He shook his head. “Not really. There are actually adventurers who never unlock their classes at all and just complete quests, kill monsters, and spend crystals to level up. Someone can actually get pretty strong that way.”
“If we didn't do any of that, how are we already levels three and four?”
“We put in the work."
"Is that why Renard put us through the wringer?"
"Yeah. And while you've been studying with Arden, I've been working with the priests. It paid off."
"Why's that?"
"Because we're ahead now."
"Howso?"
"Every time someone uses crystals to level, it costs more the next time. And quests are both limited and dangerous. At some point, it doesn't make sense to keep putting your life on the line. Thus, the only other option is hard work."
"So, Renard knew we'd go this way and beat the shit out of us to get us ready."
"Yeah, I think so. And we'll be better off for it, too.”
“Got it.” Bastard was always three steps ahead. I was grateful.
Not knowing what else to ask, I set my jaw and picked up the pace. There was only one thing left to do. We needed to find some quests.
"Oh, Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"I was just wondering..."
"What’s up?"
"I've just been curious for a while now, but I've never asked you..."
"What do you want to know?"
"What does a car look like?"
"It's a big rectangle made of metal. They're everywhere on Earth. We build whole cities around them."
"Really? That's so weird."
You know what? It was weird. "I know."
"What's it like riding in one?
We talked for the next few hours about how Earth had its own type of magic.