The carriage was tilting to the side precariously, due to the fact that two of its wheels were shattered by some means. There were scorch marks on its side, leading me to the conclusion that a fight had occurred around the vehicle.

This was proven correct when I heard a low moan from the other side of the carriage. Further investigation found that a man was slumped against the side of a wall, bleeding from a deep abdomen wound. He was well dressed, and held a bloodied sword in his loose grip.

Upon seeing me, he leveled the thin sword at me with some effort, and spoke hatefully.

“Are you here to finish me off? I’ll…let you know…that men of House Ira do not go easily.”

Not answering him, I throw him a good healing potion. He caught it at the last second, nearly dropping it due to his injuries. His eye’s widened upon seeing what I had given him, and the man hastily drank the potion.

Some of the pain left his eyes, and he spoke again.

“Dear gods, thank you. With this, perhaps I can get the young master back.”

He attempted to stand, before stumping back to the ground with a groan. Unfortunately, the healing potion was slow acting, and wouldn’t fully heal him just yet.

I stop him from trying it again, and he frowned at me.

“No! I must go! They still have him!”

I shook my head, silencing him.

Bringing up a keyboard in my UI, I began typing in a message that would convey a better plan to him.

The message was instantly transmitted to the man when I finished half a second later.

“You would be willing to go find the young master? If you really mean that, then make haste, and follow the blood trail left by those vagabonds! Hurry, do not be concerned with me!”

I nodded, and started running.

There was an obvious blood trail left behind—likely by the so-called vagabonds. Maybe the man had wounded one of them badly, before they left? At least it made it easier for me to track them down.

It’s too easy, in fact. I was beginning to regret taking this quest, since it seems that there was no difficulty in it. It's poorly designed and written as well.

The blood trail led to a large warehouse, where a few men were standing guard.

I carefully leveled two arrows at them, and shot them off, penetrating their heads and instantly killing them. I quickly retrieved my arrows, and peered through the gloomy darkness inside the warehouse.

In the center of the cleared out floor, an unconscious boy around twelve years old was tied to a chair. Near him, a group of rough looking men was discussing something.

I crept closer to them, sticking to the shadows as to remain unseen. My class gives a good boost to stealth abilities, but only if you tried to remain unseen. If one of those men were to see me out of the corner of his eye, I would still get caught.

After a few moments of careful sneaking, I got close enough to hear their conversation in full, and started listening in.

“…Pay is shit, and I don’t like the idea of going against that family.” Said one of the younger looking men there. The man next to him, who was the unfortunate owner of the ugliest face I’ve ever seen rendered, lightly smacked the back of the younger man’s head.

“Don’ speak like that. You’ll end up jinxing the whole damn operation.”

“Sure, sure. I was just pointing it out…”

A burly giant of a man glared at the young man quietly, before speaking in a voice like rocks grating together.

“If you don’t like it, then I can spare ‘that family’ the trouble, and take care of you right now. Would you rather that happened?” Asked the large man. I determined him to be the leader of this little group of kidnappers, as he seemed to be demanding the most respect in the group. Additionally, the others stepped lightly around him, so he probably wasn’t a well-liked person either.

Therefore, I could conclude that this was a group only kept together by mutual profit, or of fear towards some higher power. Who knows—there could be a puppeteer hidden in the shadow, commanding the large man in charge here.

I certainly hope that’s the case, since it would turn this simple and boring one-off quest into something at least a little more fun.

Deciding to take the path of least resistance, I strung two arrows on my bow, and let them fly at the group of men.

One of the arrows slammed into the throat of a guy with scars crisscrossing his face, while the other impacted the leader of the group through his eye, killing him instantly.

With those two arrows, I took down the two people I judged to be the greatest threats.

Of course, the rest of the kidnappers began panicking, seeing two people fall dead before them. The fact that they didn’t like one of them didn’t matter, though the fact that those two were the strongest among them mattered quite a bit.

Immediately, the kidnapper’s morale plummeted to the point were I would only have to kill two or three more to break the group.

And indeed, that’s precisely what I did.

Four more arrows lanced from the darkness inside the warehouse, accurately killing as many kidnappers.

Seeing so many of their comrades fall before them so quickly, the remaining men scattered, running out of the warehouse through it’s doors. They threw down their weapons as they went, as if to say that they wanted no more to do with this.

I didn’t bother to pursue them, or strike them while they were down. Seeing the way in which they fled in all different directions, I felt it would be more troublesome to track them all down. At least, now there’s someone to pass the word along that this kidnapping event had failed.

I traversed the open ground of the warehouse, and came to stand before the boy tied up in the center of the building. He was still breathing, but had not woken up, even with the minor mayhem I had perpetrated just meters away.

I cut the ropes holding him in place, and threw the boy over my shoulder like a sack of flour or potatoes. Then, I made my way back to the broken carriage, where the once-wounded man had stayed.

He was still there, and happily received the boy, proclaiming that I had saved his honor, and the family’s heir. The man then told me that “The House of Ira will always throw it’s door’s open for you!” In fact, he nearly dragged my there under the pretext of throwing a party in order to “properly thank the heir’s savior.”

I shook my head, declining the offer—which I knew would continue this questline. Likely, there would be an attack on the family while they were partying, and I would be dragged into a plot to eradicate the House of Ira. Then, I would be made to chose a side to stand on—to fight for, or against them.

These predictable quests are truly annoying, especially when they have such potential in the beginning. For instance, with that little opening bit involving the coachman, it would have been more interesting for him to have outright attacked me. That way, the quest would only be activated after I subdued him to the extent where he would listen to me. Of course, the quest would also have an automatic fail condition should I kill him. That way, you would have to be careful, and bring the man to a point where he was unable to attack any longer, but still willing to talk.

Also, there were parts of the quest that felt artificial, and reminded me that it wasn’t a natural event, but instead was one created and mapped out by another person. The blood trail back to the warehouse was a good example of this, as no sane person would leave such a large and obvious sign to follow. All in all, I really regretted choosing to partake in this quest.

And, this isn’t exactly an isolated phenomenon. All the quests I’ve done lately have just seemed…boring. They’ve lacked something, and I just can’t put my finger on it.

Hopefully, the kidnappers will try and attack me next time I log in. That would at least be a little interesting.

I sighed, and logged out of Ashenload. The sights and sounds around me faded to a pure and stark white, as I found myself back in that room holding my singular avatar. I was able to play her in all the games I have, due to the fact that people are able to port avatars from one game to another in VR. Of course, any ported character starts at base stats in the new games, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to experience that fun leveling process. I’ve played so much in so many different games, that my singular avatar, Vina, is max level in all of the most popular ones.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been so bored with games lately—because I’ve experienced enough for them to be repetitive? It’s become too easy for me to see where quests and storylines were going, even just after starting them. And, the gameplay’s begun to feel annoying, and just as repetitive as the rest of it all.

In short, I think I’m quickly reaching the point where normal games won’t cut it anymore. Not even the so-called ‘hardcore’ ones feel difficult at this point.

So, what should I do, then? I have a massive gap of time to fill outside of school, one normally occupied by my gaming habits. Not to mention that my gaming serves a higher purpose than one would assume just by looking at it.

Well, it looks like I now have something to keep me busy over the weekend—I need to find out what I’ll be doing for the future, now that it’s completely clear that gaming isn’t that enjoyable anymore.

All my quests are finished as well, leaving me nothing to work on.

I could always tinker with my VR visor some more, but I think I’m already pushing the envelope as far as modifications are concerned. Any more, and I might be caught.

And that’s no fun.

With nothing else to do for the moment, I flipped on the Holoscreen at the other end of the room, and settled into my couch to watch it. Normally, I would abstain from such behavior, since I could find better things to do. But now, with nothing to do, I am able to happily indulge myself in this sort of behavior.

The screen flickered to life; it’s bright colors painting the white walls of my apartment in all hues of the rainbow. I think it did, at least. I’ve never actually seen a rainbow, since the sun of this planet is too dim to manifest such a phenomenon. The planet is mostly heated through energy harnessed from tectonic movement, and a series of man-made devices including the great dome over the city, trapping heat inside.

I hear that rainbows are quite common on Earth, though.

The Holoscreen was set to show the news. That being said, I changed the channel immediately. It wasn’t that the news was boring, but rather that I didn’t want to see what was on it at the moment.

After cycling through, I found something that interested me and decided to watch it. I had forgotten that the Showcase finals were today.

Hm. Normally, I would go back and watch a recording, rather than the live version. But, I have time today.

On the Holoscreen, a massive stadium came into view. The real thing was on some distant moon somewhere, and could house a few million denizens of the galaxy. Today, all those seats were filled, if the holo-image was anything to go by.

In the center of the stadium, two people were fighting with all their power.

I had read that there were ancient civilizations that did the same sorts of things in order to keep their citizens in line, but that wasn’t the case here. You see, people entered into the Showcase willingly, due to the potential fame they could bring themselves and their families. Plus, it’s a good way to show off, hence the name ‘Showcase’.

I could tell at a glance that the two people fighting now were strong. I guessed them to be around the tenth power divide or so, based on the sheer destruction they were causing around them. One of them, a large looking woman with limbs that seemed slightly too long, seemed to have power over the rocks they stood upon. She was tossing them at the other man with utter impunity at the moment. The man, whose surroundings had melted into slag due to the intense heat surrounding his body, was maintaining the stalemate though. The rocks melted long before the point where they could reach him. His face and body was obscured by that same heat though, so I couldn’t tell what his Awakening was like.

I’ve always been interested in the applications of Klein matter. It’s such a miraculous thing that the earlier humans had found in their twilight era, and just the thing needed to spur their growth to beyond what had previously been possible. That which had been only imagined, and postulated about, rapidly turned into reality. Klein matter became commonplace very quickly, and began to be known by a different name, though scientists still use the classical one. Normal people simply know it as Magic, or Mana, after the stories told in the pre-Klein matter Earth.

The two people fighting were obviously adept in using Mana, and had massive stores of it within their bodies. They were likely from some of the galaxies most prominent families, since genetics can play a role in the amount of power you have. The rest of it is determined through the hard work of those attempting to amass Mana, and understanding it better.

These two were very, very good. They weren’t the best the galaxy had, though. That’s because the Showcase has an age limit, not allowing anyone over the age of forty from participating. This was to prevent those monsters of great age from entering, and wiping the arena floor with their opponents. With Mana theoretically allowing some to live forever, the results would just be a little bit too unfair.

For their ages though, these two combatants are at the summit of strength.

Eventually, the match ended. The man who was outputting such intense heat ramped things up to a new level, simply by walking towards the woman. He proved to be the stronger of the two, especially since he was able to neutralize her affinities so easily.

The woman conceded in the end, before the man could get close enough to seriously harm her. Right after that, the man’s fires died down, allowing the audience a good look at his Awakened face. I must say, he’s extremely fierce looking, with that long and spiky red hair, angry gaze, and sharp features.

After that, the two of them left the stadium, and the next pair were ushered in.

Interestingly, these two relied upon the strength and skill of their armaments, rather than strictly using the power of their Mana. They were warrior instead of mages.

They were akin to a pair of dancers, twirling about with their blades in a deadly act of finesse and grace. Those same blades were made of the best and strongest of metals, and still need to be reinforced by the fighter’s Mana to avoid shattering.

Unfortunately, it’s been found that only blades and the like work against someone whose reached the middle to upper reaches of Mana. Curiously, bows and throwing knives have been found to work as well, though in a less powerful way than simply taking up a sword, and imbuing it with your Mana through direct touch.

The weapons of the old humans only work against the less powerful denizens of the galaxy now. A gun fired at someone with a good amount of power is more likely to just piss them off, rather than kill them.

Hence, the resurgence of ancient armaments, like swords, daggers, and the like. They can actually be trusted to kill something in a reliable way. Even I have my own set of blades, preferring them over the unwieldiness of outdated firearms.

It was nice seeing the techniques that the two combatants used on screen though. They’re fairly proficient, and have likely been studying for dozens of years under their respective masters to get to this point. And boy, did it show. This was more a duel now, than a fight for supremacy. I could tell that the two swordsmen were having fun as well, despite the rocks and dust flying into the air with their every move. Their fight is every bit as destructive as the one that had come before it. Luckily, the stadium can repair itself, and will seem just as new after they finish.

The fight ended when a sword nicked the other man’s body deeply enough to draw blood. While this wouldn’t necessarily show who would really win in a fight to the death, it does show who has the best grasp of timing, and technique, and was enough to declare a winner.

By that time, my stomach had started growling in hunger, so I put together a light lunch to eat while watching the Showcase matches. They went on for a while, with four matches leading to the two semi-finals, and then to the finals. In the end, a man wielding a massive great-sword won the whole thing. Nobody seemed able to counter his strength of arm and Mana. I was a little disappointed, since he was one of those arrogant pricks from a High Family. I would much rather see a commoner win, unlikely as that might be.

I mentioned that genetics play a role in determining strength, right?

There are a few families who have risen to great power in the galaxy due to the potency of their bloodlines. Occasionally, you can find someone with comparable power outside of those lines, but it’s fairly rare, since very few are willing sacrifice for power in the way that the High Families are.

That’s not to say that only those families have power in the first place. Everybody has some, at least—It’s just the High Families typically have the most.

Though, you can only gain power after Awakening—A process that attunes your body to the flow of Mana, and allows you to take it in.

There are different times you can Awaken, though it depends on the aptitude the individual has. Generally, people are awakened around the ages of fourteen to sixteen. Those who have been found to have talent are Awakened earlier, while those without it are put off till later. My Awakening is slated for my eighteenth birthday, a year from now.

I was found to have very little talent, apparently.