In no time at all, I found myself in a large outdoor training area, sword in hand, trying my best to hit one very angry, very large forest shadow. The Elder had walked me over, handed me off to Rock, and then the training began.

I’d considered asking for another trainer, but the moment we’d begun, it became clear why the Elder had assigned him to me. Twin prompts popped up, alerting me to his skill.

You are being trained by a commander class! Gained status: Commander’s Oversight. +15% learning speed for weapons skills.

You are being trained by a Sword Journeyman! +5% learning speed for Sword skill.

Even after I’d seen the buffs, I considered trying to swap out. While normally, the thought of being allowed to hack and slash at the insufferable commander would have been therapeutic, thus far, things weren’t going so well.

“Pitiful!” he bellowed as he swatted away another attack. I’d yet to hit him a single time, and to add insult to injury, he was completely unarmed. Every time I cut at him, he either side-stepped the blow or pushed it away.

“Why aren’t you armed?” I gasped the words out in between swings. “Is this really going to help me face those bug-things?”

He answered, not even sounding remotely out of breath. “Doubting my methods, human? This is how we train those whose weapon skills are below level three. Of course, normally that’s just young children, but I will admit it’s rather amusing to watch you blindly flail about like a child.”

I jabbed forward right towards his center, certain that I’d hit him this time, but he effortlessly slid to the side.

“The point is,” he yawned, “until you hit level three in a weapon’s skill, I’m mostly just here to make sure you don’t cut your arms off. You definitely wouldn’t get anything out of fighting someone with a sword right now. I will say though, you’re showing much more promise than I thought you would.”

I stopped cold in my tracks. “Was that… was that a compliment?” It wasn’t as if the man’s words meant much to me, but there truly was a good feeling that came with being praised by a teacher. Maybe now that he’d had a chance to cool down, he wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.

“Credit where credit is due, girl.” He gave me a nod of approval. “When I handed you your sword, I honestly expected you to try picking it up by the pointy end, but I will admit that I was wrong.” He reached out and patted me on the head. “In that regard, you have already exceeded my expectations.”

Oh my lord! If I’d been able to hit the man, I would have… well, I would have hit the man! I started up my assault again, this time with a renewed vigor. Much to my dismay, Rock just chuckled and continued to dodge.

The training continued for about three hours. The only breaks were either for me to catch my breath and drink some water, or for Rock to correct my form. The latter happened frequently and with much laughter on his part. Halfway through, he’d had me switch from using a sword to a staff, and while I couldn’t say the experience was pleasant, the results spoke for themselves.

You have learned a new skill: Swords. +50xp

+1% damage while wielding a sword

Sword has reached level 2! +50xp

You have learned a new skill: Staffs. +50xp

+1% damage while wielding a staff

Despite the big gain, I was livid. Not once had I managed to land a hit on the boorish brute.

Sadly for my aching muscles, just because this part of the training was over did not mean I was done for the day.

“Hartha!” Rock yelled to a passing shadow.

A six-foot-tall young-twenties woman in clothes similar to mine stopped and turned towards us. It was my first good look at what the race’s women looked like, and I was surprised to see that her coloration was different from the men’s. Instead of being mostly gray with green and brown spots, her coloring was inverted, largely a light green and brown mixture with only flecks of gray. She wore her hair in two long ochre braids as opposed to the singular braids I’d seen so far.

“This human is coming with us on the expedition in two weeks. The Elder wants her trained. Take her into the woods and babysit her while she hunts. She can come back when she levels.”

The woman was clearly shocked, but instead of asking any questions, she simply nodded.

“You’re done training me?” I questioned. “I thought I was supposed to train with you because of your oversight buff.”

He grunted and started walking over to the weapons tent at the far end of the training grounds. “I get restless when I go too long without any good exercise. Considering you basically had me standing still for three hours, I’m calling it here.” He chuckled at his own joke before continuing. “We’ll start again tomorrow. Take this.” He reached into the tent, pulled a hammer out, and tossed it to me. “Use it. Who knows? Maybe eventually we’ll find a weapon that doesn’t make me laugh so much when I see you wield it.”

With that, he walked away. I’d already managed to tune out most of the insults by now, but nonetheless, I was glad to see him leave. At the very least, I desperately hoped the personality of my new “babysitter” would be an upgrade over his.

Thankfully, she beckoned me over, a warm smile on her face. “You look like you need to hit things. We can make that happen.” Her voice was high and a touch warbly, as if she’d swallowed a song bird.

“I’m Tess,” I offered. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hartha,” she replied. “But just Hart’s fine with me. Nice to meet a human! Can’t remember the last time I saw one of you all.”

Unsure what to say, I just smiled and nodded.

I was already wearing some poorly-fitting, thin leather armor from my training, but Hartha had to duck into the weapons tent to grab some along with a spear and a small pouch. Once we were all ready, we walked away from the training area and through the village.

Although, even to call it a “village” felt a bit off. For one, all of the buildings were tents, with no sign of any made from wood or brick. Even more strange to my earthly sensibilities, it wasn’t in a clearing: Trees stood tall right between the tents, shading the entire area beneath the canopy.

“You’re being a bit gawky back there. Hit me with your questions if you have any.” Her open demeanor was a welcome change of pace.

“Why are all the buildings tents? Why not make something out of wood? There’s certainly a lot of it around here.” With how little I knew, I hoped I wasn’t somehow putting my foot in my mouth.

“Mm, humans tend to set down roots. We like to leave that to the trees. Every month or so, we move around so we don’t over-hunt or collect too many herbs from a single area. The tents make it easier for us to pack up and move around.”

Huh. I supposed the nomadic lifestyle did kind of make sense for forest dwellers, although the concept of not having a fixed space all to yourself felt a bit bizarre to me. I idly wondered if I could ever get used to moving around like that.

As we moved through the village, it was becoming increasingly clear that humans were not a common sight around here. Each shadow we passed stared at me as if I were a circus animal. Quickly, however, the tents grew more and more sparse until we left the village altogether.

Before we advanced further, Hartha reached into her pouch and handed me a small vial full of a bright green paste. “Repellant. Doesn’t keep the big ones away, but it’ll keep you from having to deal with the small ones too much.”

Scarcely had the words left her lips when I was opening the vial and smearing its contents across my skin. At last! No more tiny spiders! The paste, bright green and made with the shadows in mind, didn’t blend in well on me, but I hardly cared. I’d have worn a lighted, neon dunce cap if that’d been the only way to keep the spiderlings off me.

I returned the vial to her and we kept on in silence for a while before Hartha hesitantly spoke up. “Do you have any abilities I should know about? Or would it be prying too much to at least ask how much health you have? Your business is your own, but if I’m going to be having you fight, it would be helpful to know.”

Her restraint surprised me, as I was fairly confident that had our roles been reversed, I would have had more questions. “No real abilities. I’m level two, and my health’s at 130. Also, I’m kind of an open book here. I guess we’re going to be on the same expedition and all, so might as well get to know each other a bit. Feel free to ask me anything, I guess.”

She studied me for a moment, as if to make certain I wouldn’t take it back. Then, curiosity overtook her, and a stream of questions came flying from her mouth.

“Literally so many things! Why are you here? And why are you coming on the expedition? And why are you level two? And how did you even get here in the first place? Also, what’s it like being a human? Is it true that you all have 12 toes?”

My eyebrows shot up as she kept going. “Wow, okay, more than I was expecting.”

She stared down at me with an unbridled childlike curiosity that I hadn’t expected from her, especially considering that she looked only barely younger than me. It struck me then that she probably knew more about humans on this planet than I did. Shit, did humans here have 12 toes? What if I was some sort of 10-toed freak?

“I mean, the short story is that I was born on a different planet, got teleported here two days ago by a guy I think was a god, he made me into a Protagonist, but I started out as a level 1, and now the Elder thinks I’m the key to figuring out what’s wrong with the deadlands. And also, can’t really speak for the other humans on this planet, but definitely just have 10 toes.”

The shadow appeared enrapt as I began to speak, but by the end of it, she wrinkled her nose and made a sour face. “Well damn. You don’t have to be rude about it. That makes less sense than a spider wearing pants.”

Evidently, this planet had some different idioms. Admittedly, however, the idea of a spider wearing pants didn’t make any sense. How would it even wear them? Troubling.

“I wasn’t joking, look.” I summoned my mark and held my forearm out to her, watching with no small bit of amusement as her face erupted into utter shock.

“Hot damn, now you have me wondering if there are spiders out there all pantsed up. How does that even happen? Tell me everything.”

Seeing no reason not to, I launched into my brief tale while following Hartha farther into the forest. As I trudged through the dense underbrush, my body reminded me rather pointedly that I was still tired from all of my bouts with the commander. Sadly for my stiff muscles, the day was young.