“What?” asked Artyom, all eyes staring at him with abject terror.

“You mean there are more rats? And they’re hidden?!” asked Sae. “What about all of these?” he said, as he motioned towards the rat corpses on the floor.

“As I said, they’re just the guards,” replied Artyom. “You know rats aren’t normally fighters, right? They hide in the dark and steal food when nobody’s looking. That’s their thing.”

“So how are we supposed to get them if they’re all hiding?” asked Pireni.

“Now you’re thinking!” exclaimed Artyom. Of course, anyone with half a brain on Earth knew to use poison or rat traps, and he explained just as much, without mention of Earth or the insult to their intelligence. He didn’t know what their experience in dealing with rats was, or how common that knowledge was here either.

“Well… we don’t have a [Rogue] in our party,” said Skeya meekly. “We haven’t gone anywhere that needs traps or poison before.”

“In that case, we can just stick with poison then. Now let’s go upstairs and see if Ruba or anyone else in town has any.”

“I don’t think Ruba’s a [Rogue] either,” replied Pireni. “I doubt anyone in this village is either.”

“Alright, but I’m talking about rat poison, not people poison. Can’t you make that easily?”

“Make poison? Nobody can do that except for [Rogues],” said Sae. “They’re the only ones who get the [Create Poison] Skill.”

“What? Has nobody here ever considered mixing together some arsenic, or even some cyanide? It would be pretty easy with all of the fruits being grown here,” thought Artyom. “Maybe it’s just because this is a Fairytale world, and nobody really considers using something so nasty?”

“In that case, ladies and gentleman, I think I’m going to teach you all how to perform a very dirty deed, at a very reasonable cost,” said Artyom, with a very mischievous grin spreading across his face. The others looked slightly concerned.

What followed was a search for something to poison rats. There were plenty of toxins that affected both humans and rats, and Artyom decided to start by finding something in that family. He was no pest exterminator, but he did know what could kill a person. The first option was cyanide which could be gathered and refined from fruit pits, but he knew the stuff could be incredibly nasty. Since he didn’t know how much would be enough to kill a rat without hurting a person, he decided to skip that option. Fungal or bacterial toxins like botulinum toxin? Artyom didn’t think it was wise to mess around with what was considered the deadliest neurotoxin back on earth. That left one last option: nightshade.

Of course, according to Ruba, none of the farmers even knew what nightshade was. It was a Fairytale World after all, and the absence of such plants didn’t entirely surprise him. It could also explain why brewing your own poisons was unheard of; the people here simply lacked inspiration! But not to worry, while explicitly poisonous plants might be missing, the mundane plants that produced it weren’t.

“Ruba, do you have any green potatoes?” asked Artyom, back at the inn’s common room.

“I have a few in one of the crates in the cellar, hanging from the ceiling. They’re at the very bottom, though. But you don’t want those dear, they’ll make you sick!” she replied.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat them, I have something else in mind.”

The rest of the party watched him in a combination of fear and awe as he pulled down the crate and extracted the greenest of the potatoes. It was fortunate that Ruba hadn’t bothered to toss these out yet, as Artyom was able to gather several especially verdant potatoes. As it so happens, potatoes are part of the nightshade family, along with tomatoes, and the greenness in the potatoes is the nightshade toxin itself. The green only forms when potatoes are exposed to sunlight, however, so properly cultivated potatoes should be fine. And even if you do eat the toxin, it’s incredibly weak and takes a large quantity of it to affect a human being. However, it happens to last for a long time inside the human body and can build up, thus you’re supposed to avoid the green whenever you can.

“So your plan is to get the rats sick?” asked Pireni. “I thought we were trying to kill them?”

“The church healers told me that people die if they become too sick. That’s why they always treat the sickest people first. Maybe that happens to rats too?” said Skeya.

“On the dot, Skeya!” exclaimed Artyom at the brutally obvious statement. It felt like he was teaching a group of newbies back at TOAL headquarters, all of them full of innocence and wonder juxtaposed by the terrible things he wasn’t supposed to be showing them. He’d been chewed out by their actual teacher afterwards, but it had always been worth it just to see their faces. Besides, it could end up saving their lives one day.

Artyom held out a particularly green potato in front of him above some barley placed in front of one of the rat burrows. He cast the same purging spell he used on himself yesterday on the potato, and the green began to leach out into a thin liquid that dripped down onto the barley. He repeated the process across every burrow he could find, aided by the ever so convenient Detect Life spell, which highlighted all of the hidden rat nests as a blue glow in his vision.

“Now for one last step,” said Artyom as he cast two final spells en masse. He cycled his attention between every single rat in his view while pouring his magical energies at them. “Vulnerability to Poison, Painless Suffering.” The first spell worked by magically increasing the potency of whatever toxins the target imbued, probably by affecting their metabolism. The second would prevent the rats from realizing that they were poisoned, and thus prevent other rats from avoiding the poison in the future. It would also make their ends less painful. Artyom tried to be a little merciful that way, even if his enemies were just rats.

“And that, my friends, is how to take care of a rat problem,” concluded Artyom. Everyone was looking at him in awe.

“I guess that settles it, then,” said Sae. “You can be our new [Rogue]!”

“Hold on a minute, I don’t have any levels in [Rogue] either. I’m a spellcaster, remember?”

“You can be whatever you want, Artyom. Just so long as it’s on our team!” exclaimed Pireni. “And what about you Skeya? Changes to the party have to be unanimous, so no pressure!”

Skeya looked over Artyom once more with large eyes. He gave her a warm smile in response. After a few seconds, she nodded. “I want Artyom to join the team.”

“So it’s settled then, welcome to the team, Artyom!” declared Sae. “We can go over all of our rules and how we do things in the morning. In the meantime, let’s head up and celebrate!”

“I hear that!” replied Artyom, as he and the others began climbing the stairs. “Best way for a team to celebrate a job well done is with a feast and some good booze!”

“Booze?” asked Pireni.

“You know, alcohol?” replied Artyom.

“I guess that explains why you’re so weird,” said Pireni. “It’s because you’re a nobleman! We’re still too new of a party to afford the stuff!”

So that explained why there wasn’t any booze being drunk at the inn earlier today.

“Oh no, I’m not a noble. I just read somewhere that this was just how the big adventurers celebrate, is all,” Artyom corrected himself. He wanted to come off as their peers, not their better. They’d all be a lot more uptight around him if they thought he was socially above them.

“If you say so, mister spellcaster,” concluded Sae.

“But really, why is the stuff so expensive?” asked Artyom out of genuine curiosity.

“I was told it’s really hard to ferment,” began Skeya. “The church uses them in some rituals, so I’ve heard them complain about the price. Usually, fermented juice ends up turning into sparkle instead, unless you’re a high level brewer. Then you get a skill that makes alcohol instead.”

“Skeya, if we wanted a church lesson, we’d go there ourselves,” whined Sae, bored at the new information. Skeya looked dejected in response.

“I thought it was pretty interesting!” said Artyom. “No wonder it’s so expensive, only a few people can make it.”

Skeya’s eyes brightened at his response, and her expression began to glow, even down in the dark basement.

After a few more steps, they arrived at the ground floor and gave Ruba the good news; the rat problem should be solved for good. She excitedly handed over the reward to Sae, several silver coins and a few bottles of cherry sparkle.

“And you’re sure the problem is solved permanently?” asked Ruba, slightly incredulous at their statement. “Either way, not having to deal with the rats for a few more weeks is worth the price, but are they really gone for good?”

“According to Artyom here, they should be!” said Pireni. “So, I’m hungry. How about we party?”

And with that, after Sae had a chance to clean off his sword and patch up the bite mark in his pants, the four party members gathered in the bar for dinner. They were arranged in a similar order from before, but Artyom sat between Pireni and Skeya. They all chatted over some of their hard won cherry sparkle and grilled steaks that Ruba had prepared in celebration. Sae was describing his heroic fight against the rats, how he took on an entire swarm of them single handedly. Pireni of course corrected him whenever his boasts edged into the realm of fiction, and Skeya giggled at their resulting bickering. Artyom simply sat back and enjoyed the meal and company. Sofia was right about this really being a vacation, but he still had a quest of his own to complete.

“So, are there any other big adventurer teams around? Anyone you all particularly look up to?” asked Artyom, attempting to steer the conversation into useful intel.

“Don’t tell me you’re already trying to leave the party!” teased Pireni. “You haven’t even been a member for an hour yet!”

“Oh, don’t tease him Pireni, I’m sure he’s just curious,” chided Sae. “But there are a couple of teams we’ve met so far, all of them also pretty new. Micco’s team had a ton of members, like five of them, and they were finishing quests like crazy!”

“Oh yeah, they’re amazing!” replied Pireni. “But we’re catching up to them, so we’ll be the best around before long.”

“One of the other [Clerics] at my old church also joined an adventurer team, but they don’t really do any fighting,” said Skeya.

“Mm, I see,” replied Artyom. He had no idea who any of them were. Context, people!

“How about you, Artyom? Have you seen any really strong teams before?” asked Skeya, with genuine curiosity.

Artyom had met plenty of adventurer teams during his missions, but he either hired or fought against them, rather than joined any. So he lied.

“A few, but they were mostly kids playing pretend. You’re the first real team I’ve met!” he said.

“Never met a team before?” asked Sae. “I thought we all came from small towns, but even a village like freeacres sees a few once in a while. You must really be from the boonies!”

“Haha, I guess I must’ve missed the adventurers when I was out travelling!” joked Artyom.

The celebration continued late into the night, which meant everyone was getting ready for bed by 10 pm. It might’ve been a party, but everyone was strict about adhering to a proper bedtime. Artyom had to wake up relatively early that day anyway, so he welcomed the early break.

“I’m totally going to level up tonight!” exclaimed Sae. “I wonder if I’ll get a new skill?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely going to get an accuracy skill tonight!” replied Pireni.

“I hope the Goddess blesses me with a level too,” said Skeya. “And I’ll make sure to ask her why Artyom doesn’t have any spellcaster levels.”

“Well hopefully you won’t have to worry about that after tonight,” said Artyom. “If all of that doesn’t give me a level, I don’t know what will.”

Everyone went to their respective rooms for the night. The inn was empty enough that everyone had their own room to themselves. They were quite small however, so they wouldn’t be able to fit more than a single person in each anyway. As every member of the party fell asleep, they heard a chime and the words “level up!” ring in their minds. The sound filled them with a feeling of happiness and pride that brought them better dreams. That is, except for one. Artyom fell asleep normally, without any such alert. Just radio silence to guide his mind as he drifted off.