My body hurt like hell. Like I had been sliced with a dull knife before being smashed into the ground with a roller, only to then be dropped into a grinder and left to become a paste. Everything hurt. Michael didn’t just beat me up one time. He beat me up, had Linda heal me, then did it again. Over and over. This repeated so many times that I lost count.

  I had expected one of the girls to step in at one point or another, but they had disappeared when I wasn’t looking. Leaving me in the hands of my torturer. They probably got sick of seeing such a weakling getting his ass handed to him. Which was made even worse when one realized that they were the ones training me.

  Now, that isn’t to say I didn’t learn anything from the big guy. By the end, I was managing to dodge quite a few of his attacks. Effectively making him work to hit me. Given that he didn’t come after me the same way twice, I learned how to dodge many different styles of attack. This became harder as I grew more and more tired.

  Too bad, for me, he refused to stop a fight until I became incapacitated. That typically meant I had to have bones broken or pass out from blood loss. Each of which Linda healed without issue. Though sometimes she did have to cast some disgusting spells. Spells that relied on her blood directly entering my body to do its job. Those wounds didn’t just sting or itch as they healed. No, they burned.

  Even now, after a full night's sleep, some of the worst of the cuts still felt a bit warm. I let out a pained groan as I got out of bed and slid my feet along the wood floor. As soon as I entered the bathroom, I caught a look at my body in the mirror. Every muscle was visible, but not overly so. The view in the mirror reminded me of how some professional swimmers looked.

  Though, the thing that caught my eye had little to do with the muscles themselves. My body was covered in dark bruises. Linda might have been able to heal me, but, either she didn’t heal me the entire way, or she couldn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I got into the shower and let the hot water soothe the pain.

  The moment the steaming water hit my skin, I practically moaned. While the pressure of the water made my bruises throb in pain, the heat it imparted made up for it. Hidden knots were melted away as my muscles finally relaxed. The only thing that could have made the experience better was if I was in a bath or a hot springs.

  My daydream thoughts of such an experience were enough of a distraction that, when I came back to reality, I had no idea how long I had been standing there. All I knew was that it couldn’t have been less than a half hour judging by the amount of pruning on my fingers.

  I counted it as a blessing that the water never once changed the temperature on me. Something that even my apartment couldn’t boast with its modern plumbing. But, I needed to get out and get a move on. While I didn’t want to talk to Michael, I had agreed to go out with the group today. Given that they had fulfilled their side of the deal, I needed to hold up mine as well.

  With the water off, I dried and walked out of the bathroom. Judging by the fact that the trailing edge of the sun was lifting over the wall, I had been in there for quite a while. Long enough that they were probably getting annoyed.

  Quickly getting dressed, I jogged out of the room and down the stairs. The group sat at a table in the corner. Empty platters were stacked in the center of the table. As one, the group rose as they noticed me coming down the stairs. Michael waited for me while the rest started for the exit. I took a second to close my eyes and took a deep breath before joining him.

  He didn’t speak until we both were outside the building and the whole group was on the way out of the city. “We are going to go hunt a few Effervescent Boars.” Michael passed me the quest sheet.

  ‘Would you like to accept this quest?’

  That was, weird. “Who writes the quest descriptions?”

  Michael smiled, “Most of the time? NPCs. Though there are quite a few quests created by other players, things like quests to gather a specific item that they need for crafting or to help them get to another city.”

  “And this quest?”

  “Oh, a player. Definitely a player.” He laughed, “None of the NPC’s would dare write anything like a pun on an official document. Especially one that their gods might read.”

  After accepting the quest, I passed the sheet back over. “I would think that a city official would be writing the quests for festival materials, not a player.”

  “From what I understand, the last person in the position quit and moved out of town. Given the fact that he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving and that there was no time to train someone to take over, the city asked for volunteers and interviewed each one. They didn’t care if the applicants were travelers or not.” Michael’s hand lifted to place air quotes around the word travelers.

  “Seeing as the game didn’t care that a player got what amounts to an administrative job, does that mean anyone can get any job in the game?” I asked, my mind picturing someone trying to take over one of the governments in-game.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I doubt we will know until someone takes over, or doesn’t. But, that is enough of that. Do you have any questions on the quest itself?”

  “Yeah, isn’t three gold per boar a bit much?”

  “Well, one,” Michael said as he lifted one finger up. “The quest is for usable meat. That means no poisoning, burning, or otherwise turning in meat that cannot be used as an ingredient. Two.” He lifted another finger. “They are a bitch to hunt.” I lifted my eyebrow at that. If he considered it annoying to hunt these things, how would I fare? “Did you think the word Effervescent is in their name just because it sounded cool? The things never stop running. Which wouldn’t be an issue except the damn things have a ton of mass in a tiny package.”

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  “Imagine a hog as long as Michael is tall yet weighing twice as much,” Jeremiah called back.

  “Okay, so not so tiny.” Michael rolled his eyes. “But the things still pack a punch.”

  “That they do,” Jeremiah said as he slowed a bit to join us. “But I think I will stay in the back again.”

  Victor joined in on the conversation. “You mean you will stay out of the way and keep from casting anything, right? We don’t need a repeat of the harvest festival.”

  Jeremiah’s body shuddered at some memory. “You don’t have to remind me. Do you know how long it took for me to remove the mud from my entire body? I didn’t even know you could get mud in some of those places.”

  Victor held his hands up in mock surrender. “Agreed, thank you very much.”

  Michael’s lips were curled up in a smile as he continued. “And three, boar meat is tasty as hell. The stalls that sell it will make a killing. Even paying that much per boar won't make much of a dent in their profits.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, figuring they already had a plan for this hunt.

  “Oh, for the most part, each of us kills our own,” Lance stated from where he stood. He was the happiest I had seen him since I met the wolfman.

  “We kind of make a game of it,” Michael said. “I think Patric still holds the number one spot on our team for the cleanest kill.”

  “I would also have the fastest if not for Jeremiah creating a river of mud out of the hill we were on,” Patric grumbled.

  “I thought I said to not remind me of that.”

  “You were not the only one that spent hours cleaning mud out of their ass.” Patric snapped back. “Try being the one sliding down the mudslide from hell.”

  “Why didn’t you just vanish into the shadows, or whatever you do,” I asked.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Patric answered. “I can’t enter a shadow while I am moving. Or at least, I couldn’t at the time. Not being able to get out of that mess was one of the reasons I worked so hard to level up that skill.”

  “I get that leveling up skills can increase what they are able to do, but how does one go about leveling them?” While I had already leveled a few, I was fairly sure that those levels had been more luck than anything else. I needed to figure out the trick to leveling them now so I could get them as high as possible as fast as possible.

  “By just using them,” Patric shrugged.

  Before I could demand he tell me more, Michael spoke up. “I am sure that one of your teachers has told you this, but you just need to find the skills limits and push them. Need more range, train that skill in such a way that you have to stretch it just past its limits every time. Eventually, that skill will level up.”

  “But that makes no sense.” I practically whined at the difference between this game’s answer to skills compared to others. “That would mean that each skill is different for each player. How would anyone be able to teach another player a skill or work together to do something?”

  “You are right that each skill is unique to each player,” Michael said, his head nodding once. “But it is not as big a deal as you would think. If one person went for range and another went for power, they would get both, albeit, not as much. Someone focusing on power would always have more power in their skill than the one going for range. But it's only something like five or so percent.” He waved the difference off like it was nothing.

  Without warning, Lance stopped. His hand lifted up as the ears on the top of his head twitched. Looking around, I realized just how far from town we had managed to make it while talking. Michael’s voice was soft as he asked, “How many?”

  “Six, maybe seven,” Lance responded just as quietly. “Fairly spread out.” As one, the group slowly made their way up the hill. I followed them as well as I could, but even I could tell that I was making a ton of noise. Thankfully, no one said a word. All of their attention was on the hairy pigs on the other side of the hill. There were five that I could see.

  “Where is the…” I started. It was Victor who pointed to a rock that jutted out of the ground of the valley below. Two hairy asses poked out from behind the rock. Michael pointed at the two and gestured to himself and Linda. He then pointed at the isolated one nearest those two and gestured to me. I ignored the rest of his orders. Choosing to focus on my target instead.

  It wasn’t the smallest in the group, nor was it the biggest. Those went to Linda and Michael respectively. Not that it mattered. If I could hit something vital then it would go down no matter what size it was. However, if I was the one that got hit in the exchange, even if it was by the small one, I would probably die. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael hold up a hand with three fingers. Likely counting down so that none of us spooked the group too early. Wait, no, that wasn’t right. If anything, it was more likely that he was counting down so that no one cheated.

  Not that it mattered to me. All I cared about was killing that boar. As he dropped his second to last finger, I formed and cast my Body Fortification spell with as much power as I could. It activated just as the rest started to move.

  My footing was poor. Not that I should have expected different. It was a dirt hill, not a sidewalk that I was running down. Still, I nearly tripped multiple times on my way down. The only thing that kept me going was my enhanced reflexes. Reflexes that were being powered by a spell that was sucking the mana out of me at a visible rate.

  As I got closer, I pulled out my sword. A plan formed in my head on how to hit it. Too bad for me, the creature wasn’t willing to stay still and wait for me to attack. Its head lowered to point its two curved tusks in my direction and it charged.

  I managed to deflect the tusk pointed at my gut, but it went in the wrong direction. Its head turned in the direction I forced it. The other tusk cut through my shirt like it was paper as it rammed into my side. The head kept moving. Digging the tusk in further as the force of the impact lifted me off my feet.

  It felt like someone was digging away at my insides with a fucking spoon. Grinding against my bones as it tried to break them. The pain was more than I had felt so far in this game. I probably screamed as I used what little force I could muster to stab at the damn beast.

  Seconds or hours later, the beast was on the ground, finally dead. Its face was cut into ribbons, for what little good it did me. The killing cut was the one Patric had delivered to its jugular. If one didn’t think about it too hard, the cut almost looked like the creature's neck simply had a wide smile.

  The thought of a boar smiling nearly caused me to laugh. I mean, how would a boar even smile? Why would it smile? Why was I thinking about a boar smiling again? Why was Linda practically pouring her magic down my throat? I couldn’t be that hurt. I mean the creature only managed to hit me one time after all.

  And what was with Michael yelling at me from his position nearby? “Are you a fucking idiot? What in the hell possessed you to charge straight in?”

  As her healing replaced some of the blood loss I realized just how loopy I had been. Looking back I saw just how close to death I had been. With a resigned groan, I answered him. “I thought I could get in close enough, fast enough, to hit it before it could react.”

  “That would be a good plan,” he agreed before shooting it down. “If you were either faster or had better armor because that shirt and pants combination are shit.” No kidding. It had done nothing to stop the boar's tusk.

  “Do you have any other armor? Something with a bit more defense?” Linda asked, a bit of concern in her voice. Likely from the fact that she had to heal me from near death multiple times in less than twenty-four hours. Her question brought to mind the dress I had in my inventory. The only dress that I owned. The one I would never wear.

  Unfortunately for me, she must have seen something flit across my face. “You do!” Her face went from glee to a combination of concern and confusion as she asked, “But if you have something then why are you not wearing it? Death, even for you travelers, is not something you want to experience.”

  I adamantly shook my head. “Nope. Not happening. I will not be wearing that thing.”

  “You will wear it if you want to keep hunting with us.” Michael practically yelled in exasperation.

  “Why?” I demanded. Not wanting to give in.

  “Because you do not want to experience death. Even if you were to get over all the lost experience and items, that place…” Michael paled and shook at whatever he was recalling of the experience.

  “Suffice it to say, if we can stop someone from getting themselves killed, we will. No matter who it is or what sorts of deals we have.” Linda said as she set a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “But don’t worry. When we get back to the town, we can get you something that will work for next time.”

  So, I was being given a choice. Give up on participating in this quest and watch them, or put on the dress. You would think the answer would be easy. There would always be next time. If I knew what direction town was, I could just head back now and get something myself. Maybe make it back out to kill a boar before it got too dark. But no, I had no clue which direction we had gone. I just knew that we had taken a few random turns as Lance tracked the creatures.

  “You don’t have to decide now,” Jeremiah spoke as he picked his way down the hill. “It took us a bit longer to get out here, and, as far as I know, you haven’t had anything to eat. So why don’t we cook some lunch while you make up your mind?”

  The memory of whatever was on the other side of death's door must have been more taxing than I realized because Michael collapsed on the ground at the idea. His head nodded as he sat there, his face pale and his breathing was ragged but deep. Linda didn’t look like she was willing to leave him to go cook food.

  Being the gentleman I was, and wanting to get a bit more practice, I offered to cook lunch. Who cared that I would be treating this group like guinea pigs as they would be the first people to taste my cooking? Hell, maybe I would add a touch more salt to Michael’s food. He deserved it.