Sophie watched Sam, if that was even his real name, march on ahead of her through the trees.

She’d followed him southwest for the last few days, but the more she observed him the more of an enigma he became. He was unlike any NPC she’d met before.

Most of the ones that she’d met were polite people, or perhaps brash and distrusting at worst. Very few had been hostile and even then they generally didn’t attack, often out of fear from ‘retribution’ for harming one of the Gods’ Chosen. Bandits, hermits and the like fitted into the latter category, but most villagers she’d encountered had been distrustful at worst. Even in his village he’d been the only one to be actively hostile.

His actions though might have been explainable due to the loss of a loved one at the hands of players, but if he was the son of the village chief, then wouldn’t they have both held a grudge against her for being a player? Since the chief had acted as he had, she doubted it. There was something strange about that village and Sam in particular. There was something off about him, something in the way he acted and the way the villagers looked at him. The status plate and the oath could both be explained away, if they were part of the power of their ‘Lord’.

From the reports she’d gotten from Nords and the villagers this ‘Lord’ could easily be a hidden high tier boss. An intelligent Field boss. She shuddered, glad that it had shown no signs of moving out of the forest, instead being content to protect the forest and the village. This had been confirmed when the villagers had unanimously agreed that their Lord had no interest beyond the protection of the forest and its people. It made her wonder what was being hidden in the forest that a powerful hidden boss guarded it. It wasn’t the status plate… was it?

For a brief while she had contemplated Sam being the Lord in disguise. But so far, she had yet to see any great feats magic and the bandaged wounds that she’d healed after their first day of hiking had proven that he didn’t have the combat skills that would be required to take down an entire guild. Being the best hunter in the village didn’t equate to ranker level skills.

From there it just got stranger though. Despite being a seemingly normal villager, Sam was fearless, absolutely fearless, as if he didn’t fear death. The way he walked talked and acted all reflected this. She’d checked several more times to ascertain whether he was a player, but she got no return signal from him like she should have.

It was a trick that she’d picked up while travelling through the villages. All players, as ‘Gods’ Chosen’ carried something that the NPCs called a ‘divine spark’, which would resonate when coming in contact with divine energy.

His distinct lack of knowledge of the outside world was also disturbing. Some of the questions that he asked were basic knowledge on the gamer forums. Things like how people had an elemental affinity based on what type of magic they first used in game, or the system judged that they had an aptitude for. These questions extended to other knowledge such as other races, the gods, artifacts, practically anything that she thought was common knowledge.

And yet he could somehow use magic. On the first night and every night after, he’d summoned stone slabs from the ground to make a shelter. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she also found him secretly lighting the fire with a small, conjured flame.

Thinking about it made her mind hurt. An NPC was using magic and they were dual affinity too! From all accounts that she’d gathered, that was rare, incredibly rare. But then again so was an NPC using magic, especially a young one. And a human!

She chewed her lip. It just didn’t make sense! Humans were one of the least mana compatible races in this world and also had no racial gifts or ancestry. The few old ‘mages’ that she’d met in villages required chants and time to cast their magic and even then, it was small simple things. And here was a young human male using magic like it was second nature. And it was chantless!

Everybody knew that you needed chanting to focus mana into a spell. It was… It was common knowledge! But just like all the other common knowledge it seemed that this… this…fool, had missed the memo. If she hadn’t seen how flawless the game was in every other aspect, she would have suspected a bug. Whatever this guy was, he broke the rules.

Taking out a little note pad she scribbled something down into her little report journal. Her oath prevented her from speaking of the village and everything that had happened in it, but they were no longer in the village. Anything that she learnt after that was fair game.

Even if she didn’t want anything to do with Sam after this mission, she would still issue a report to the guild. Sam could become a valuable asset, or a possible threat.

***

Azrael set up camp for the night, dumping a little more than half his mana pool into raising two stone slabs from the ground. While [Earth Shaping] took less mana than actually conjuring it, using it to move such large pieces of earth still took a lot. A hidden [Fire Bullet] later and the bundle of sticks he’d gathered burst into flame.

So far, he’d stuck to using only these two magics, not wanting to make Sophie wary. He’d tried hiding his use of [Fire Bullet], but gave up once Sophie noticed.

He’d heard from Cairn and Hugh that they had heard of some villages having mages that could use simple lifestyle magics. He hoped that using only these two basic ones wouldn’t seem too unusual.

Sophie’s magic itself was quite interesting. One of the perks of her [Wind Mage] class seemed to be a spell to increase movement speed, meaning that they could move far more distance than he’d originally anticipated. Coupled with their stats, they were moving way faster than any normal travelling party back in real life ever could.

Throwing another handful of sticks into the fire, he touched a hand to his torso. Beneath his clothes his skin was healed, perfect and pristine. It was the effects of [Heal], another one of Sophie’s spells.

During the first day of hiking, his wounds had reopened, staining his bandages red and becoming more aggravated with each movement. He’d tried to hide it, imperceptibly slowing down to reduce the pain. Sophie had noticed though.

Forcing him to take off his shirt and jacket she had used [Heal] on him, consecutively. Due to his title {Heretic} her skill had only been half as effective as it should have. She hadn’t seemed to notice.

[Meditation] had already healed most of the deep tissue wounds, only leaving behind large and aggravated, yet shallow wounds that looked worse than they really were. [Heal] closed them up.

The process of using [Heal] interested him. [Heal], unlike [Blessing of Purity] actually used a bit of the person’s mana. Using [Soul Sense] he’d watched her draw a little bit of divine energy from her soul, letting it mix with her own mana, before casting the skill.

All of this took process as she chanted another one of her weird religious chants. Hearing somebody approach the fire, he looked up to find Sophie the firelight. Each night she would take a few minutes and go off into the trees where he couldn’t see her.

He assumed it was to pray. He couldn’t be bothered checking. It didn’t matter to him anyways.