Do you ever think about how much time the average RPG character spends traveling around? To be honest, I myself hadn’t given it much thought before we went off on our own adventure. It turns out the answer is a lot.

I wish the makers of Placeholder would’ve had the decency of adding a fast travel button at least.

-----

After sending off the [Message] to Doom Fury, Jake had one more thing he wanted to take care of. “Hey, Megan. Can I talk with you for a minute?”

“Sure,” she said.

“I think it should be in private. Mind taking a walk?”

“That’s not ominous or anything,” she muttered but followed him anyway.

Once Jake thought they were a decent distance from the party, he broke the silence. “I just wanted to say that Titus’ wrath aura wasn’t the only thing that showed up on the party interface. It says that you have a condition as well.” Jake paused. “I guess conditions function like permanent status effects or something? I don’t know. Either way, I looked at it, and you have Major Kleptomania.”

Megan snorted. “I’m glad your perk can confirm what I already told you.”

“Well, it did, and I just wanted to apologize. I didn’t actually believe that part of your story. I also wanted to ask if it was okay if I let everyone else know about it.”

“Sure, it doesn’t matter to me. Anything else you need, Jake?”

“Well.. A third thing is that I wanted to say I’m proud of you. We haven’t heard of anything stolen in the past 6 months, so you must have really been working hard to fight your urges.”

Megan didn’t seem to know what to say about that. “Uhh.. Thanks.”

“And last thing, I don’t really want to become the team shrink, but if you need someone to talk to, just let me know, okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks, though.”

They stood there in silence for a bit. “Well, let’s head back then,” Jake said. He turned his head away from Megan for a second, and she had already vanished. It’s still a bit creepy how she can do that.

He decided to follow Megan through the party and quickly noticed that she was [Sneaking] up on Titus yet again. After making him jump, she said something to him, and they both went on their own walk.

Huh, looks Emilia was right. Something’s going on between those two.

------

I wasn’t quite sure what Megan would want to talk about, but I knew that it definitely wouldn’t be anything good. “So, what’s up?” I asked as soon as we were far enough away.

“We’re about to go off to who knows where, and I won’t have any stupid villagers to [Steal] from when I get the urge,” she stated flatly.

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Oh. That’s not good. Why are you just bringing it up now?”

“Jake just found out about my kleptomania. Apparently, it shows up to him, along with your wrath aura. We had a little chat about it, and I realized I don’t have a good way to deal with the urge if we are off traveling alone.”

I thought for a moment. “I see two options here. First, you could try [Stealing] from party members and then putting it back, just like you were doing with the villagers. The other option is to come clean about how you are handling it now, and then see if they were willing to help with it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I meant that they just let you [Steal] stuff from them, and then you give it back,” I answered. “It should work out fine as long as you convince everyone to vote on it. The [Hero] and Garrett will buy it if you convince them you’re just trying to get your kleptomania under control. Sam and Lindsey probably won’t care too much either way, and that leaves Emilia, Andrew, and Tim. For Andrew and Tim, if you just get on Tim’s good side, Andrew will cave since he only cares about his precious baby boy.” I suddenly realized I was scowling and also that my wrath aura was back out. I stopped both.

“Emilia will never go along with it because she already doesn’t like me, but I think I can get Tim on my side.” She thought for a second. “Yeah, this could work. Not the worst play I’ve seen, though it is a bit hypocritical coming from you.”

“Oh? How so?” It was my turn to glare a bit at her.

“The person with the biggest, most darning-“ We both shared a look and a sigh at that bit of censoring before she tried again. “The person with the biggest, most awful secret telling me to come clean about mine.”

I laughed mirthlessly. “When you found out about my secret, you stabbed me. When the [Hero] thought he found me out, he pointed his sword at me. When Emilia did figure me out, she almost killed me. I think I have more than enough evidence to say that people finding out about me being [Demon Lord] is a bad thing.”

“Okay, fair point.” Megan shrugged. “I guess the only question left is if that play will impact the long term goal here. I still want to be able to make off like a literal bandit with the rewards we get from defeating you by claiming the 4th dungeon.”

“Well, I think it will-“ I finally noticed what she said. “Wait. I thought we agreed the plan was to let me finish the quest!”

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m greedy, but even I’m not stupid enough to let you open a portal to Heck.” She paused. “Again? Really? Hail. Heck. If there is a literal place that demons are coming from, why can’t I say Heck?” she grumbled.

“But, I need to complete the entire quest, or there’s no point in doing it at all!”

She shrugged. “Not my problem. Also, it’s not like I think you’ll be able to keep up the charade that long even with my help. I give you until the 3rd dungeon. Tops.”

That ended the discussion. Wow. What a beach.

I walked back to the party alone and was stewing. Jake noticed and immediately called out when I returned. “Titus, your aura’s back on!”

I took a deep breath, found it, and retracted it. “Better?” I asked grumpily.

“Yup. Wait, nope. It’s back.”

I just sighed.

“Girl trouble?” Jake asked.

“What?” I was shocked enough at that question that I was pulled out of my downward spiraling mood.

“You and Megan sneak off together. You come back grumpy. It doesn’t take a genius to add it up,” he replied.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the implication, but I figured it was better than Jake finding out what we were actually up to. I snorted. “I don’t want girl advice from a [Hero] with a harem. No, thanks.”

Jake crossed his arms. “Hey! I’m not making a harem.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I mean, Sam, Lindsey, and Megan aren’t really my type anyway. That and I think Sam may have an interest in someone else. You should have seen-”

I didn’t miss the name that wasn’t mentioned. I interrupted him. “Sam, Lindsey, and Megan, aren’t your type. But Emilia is?” I whispered back.

“I didn’t say that!” he hissed back.

I just looked at him.

“Okay, fine. You got me. I might be interested in Emilia, but keep that under wraps, okay? Dating a party member’s all fine and good in stories, but it kinda feels like dating a coworker. Only worse because of the stakes, ya know? I really don’t want the quest to save the world to be held up by relationship drama.” He sighed. “This party has enough issues without that.”

“Fair enough.” I decided to give him a break.

After that, the entire party met up. That included Emilia, who had been off in the woods taking a walk. After another reminder from Jake to pull my aura back in and a quick explanation of the aura to her, she even apologized to me.

“I still think you’re the [Demon Lord], and if so, I believe that you still deserve the worst punishment possible for leading an attack on this town, but I’m sorry for shooting at you. Your punishment should be decided by the appropriate authorities and not me during a moment of anger.”

At least, it had the words “I’m sorry” in there, so I chose to count it. When you’ve been deceiving and lying to people since you knew them, you have to take what you can get.

The next order of business was Megan’s kleptomania. Megan decided to reveal how she had been handling it, and she asked for permission to [Steal] from the party instead. The votes went about how I expected. Jake and Garrett were her foremost advocates. I, of course, went with her because I still needed her help. Sam and Lindsey basically just followed us. Tim ended up being swayed because she appealed to his ego by saying that that party would need his help keeping track of inventory and shares to ensure that she couldn’t get away with actual thievery.

The last item on the agenda was when to leave. I was a bit surprised that they were ready to go, but it turns out that they all had been hanging onto a tent, provisions, and generally keeping prepared for the last couple of months.

Jake wanted to get going that afternoon to try to get to the earth dungeon as soon as possible. He reminded us that we were still in a time crunch trying to beat the [Demon Lord] there.

However, Garrett disagreed. Garrett advised caution since we would be going into uncharted wilderness, and we wouldn’t know what we would come across. We took it to a vote, and the vote ended up going to staying the night.

While the rest of the party went to bed, I was left to my own devices. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I decided to do more science—specifically, zoology. The noble wolves weren’t hostile to Jake and the rest of the crew, but would they attack me?

I wandered the forest alone at night until I managed to find one. Or I guess ten. I walked up to them, and they started growling at me but didn’t make a move. “Huh. So either you aren’t hostile to anyone, and you just don’t like me, or the fact that I’m in the party means something.”

The wolves continued growling. Well, I guess there’s an easy way to check. I dropped out of the party.

The change in behavior was immediate. The wolves suddenly howled and began trying to circle me. I knew how this fight went after so many other times, so I decided to mix it up. “[Summon Dave]!” I cast my spell, and the ball of slime fell to the snowy forest floor. “Attack those wolves!”

The dave began hopping towards the wolves menacingly. Or adorably. When it’s nothing more than a ball of goo, I guess it’s kinda hard to tell what mood it’s going for.

Meanwhile, several of the wolves started circling it cautiously. One finally ran forward and bit down on it. It immediately dropped to the ground dead. That didn’t stop any of the other wolves, though. It was 5 bite attacks and 5 dead wolves before the dave finally bounced its last. It evaporated into smoke. Huh. Bite attacks are 10 damage, so 41 to 50 HP per dave. Good to know.

I put down the other wolves without much issue and then hurried back to town. I didn’t want people to know that I was out hunting friendly doggos, or they might not take it too well.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. I stayed inside the town limits messing around with daves until the party woke up. Then we finally bid farewell to Faroff.

The [Village Elder] seemed a bit too happy to see us go, but I suppose they didn’t really need us there anymore, so I didn’t question it.

I packed up my daves, I had around 20 of them by that point, and told them to follow us as we began walking south. Not very much happened until I got a notification from the system.

System: Zone entered, Wilderness

“So, is this just a zone called wilderness, or is that just what It calls areas out in the wild?” I asked.

“I think the second one,” Jake answered. “Since the forest had a dungeon, maybe the areas marked as wilderness don’t?”

“Huh. Maybe.”

The party walked on for a bit longer before Jake spoke again. “Guys, why don’t we pick up the pace a bit? We can go until someone hits about half SP and then we can go back to walking.”

“Yeah, good idea Jake,” Garrett answered. “It’s weird not to have to worry about anyone tiring out for real. Let’s pick up the pace to a jog and see how much ground we can cover.”

“Awww,” I whined. “I’ll have to leave the daves behind then!”

Jake snorted. “Oh, you’ll be fine. You can just summon more.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. Wait, what if someone stumbles across them? That could be bad. I turned towards my miniature army. “Stay here and don’t move. Don’t attack anyone even if you’re attacked.”

All my daves stood still, but I didn’t know if that was because they were confused and went with their default of stopping, or if they actually understood that order.

I didn’t have time to check because the party had already kicked up their pace to a jog. Oh well, they’ll just despawn anyway. They should be fine for a day.

I caught up to the party, and we continued south. Aside from the occasional walking break to let Sam, Tim, and Andrew regain SP, we were making good time. Nothing noteworthy happened that day except for a single fight.

We heard the familiar howls, we got in formation, and dark wolves charged onto the scene; only 10 of them, and not an alpha among them. We put them down quickly.

“Well, that was easy,” I said. “Why are we seeing so few enemies?”

Jake shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the wilderness has a lower concentration or somethin’?”

No one else had a better idea, so we pretty much just shrugged and kept going. Soon enough, it was getting dark, and we pitched camp for the night.

I volunteered to keep watch due to not needing sleep and also having [Dark Vision]. Tim and Andrew protested a little, but they gave in as long as there was at least one other person up and keeping watch too.

They decided on two-hour shifts, and Jake volunteered for the first one. He pulled out a torch to help with the fading light, and we both kept watch over the camp. It wasn’t the safest or most vigilant thing to do, but we soon ended up talking.

“So, what’s your favorite thing about being here?” Jake asked.

“My favorite thing? Huh, I guess I never thought much about that.” I trailed off. I had spent a lot of time griping and complaining, but there had to be something that I liked about the new world, right? I eventually came up with something. “I think all the simplifications.”

Jake gave me a confused look. “What do ya mean?”

“Well, take HP, for example. In the real world, getting a cut was a big deal based on where it was. If you got even a small cut on the right vein or artery, then you could bleed out just like that. Here I’ve been shot with arrows, bit by wolves, and even smacked around by a bear, and there isn’t any lasting harm,” I said.

At Jake’s slightly dubious look, I continued. “But it’s more than that. I mean, with SP telling you how tired you are, things are just simpler.” I pointed at his arm that was holding the torch. “I bet you could hold that above your head basically as long as you want now. In the real world, your arm would get tired after just a couple minutes.” I shrugged. “So yeah, simplifications. Just things like that that make living simpler. No random back pain from sleeping wrong because I doubt there are status effects for that type of thing, either.”

“Huh,” he said as he looked at his arm that was holding up the torch. “Yeah, I think one of my favorite things would have been the new bodies we got, but I guess I just didn’t tie in how HP and SP work with them. I guess you have a point.”

The conversation died a bit, so I decided to try to keep it going. “You said one of your favorite things. What else would you have said?”

Jake grinned. “I mean, I’m really glad I got chosen as the [Hero]. I’m pumped that I get to be a part of one of those stories where a hero gets summoned to save another world. I’m also really thankful that Garrett came along. I like to give him a hard time, but I really appreciate him.” He thought for a second. “I guess I’m also looking forward to all the adventuring that we’re going to do. We’re going off into uncharted magical lands with strange monsters-“

My laugh cut him off.

He scowled a bit before chuckling too. “Fine, with monsters that up to this point have mostly been larger than normal animals with red eyes.” He sighed. “They better have dragons here somewhere, or I’m going to be so ticked.” He looked confused for a second. “Passed. Paced. Ticked. Huh, been a while since the censor’s caught me, didn’t think it would mind that one.”

I got us back on topic. “Assuming there are dragons, would you want them to be friendly or hostile?” I asked.

“Hmmm… I guess I wouldn’t mind if they were hostile. Fighting a dragon sounds pretty BA. Then again, getting to ride on a dragon might be even cooler. What about you? Which do you hope?”

I chuckled. “Friendly hands down. I don’t want to have to try to save your life when you pick a fight with a hostile level 100 uber death dragon overlord.”

“You wouldn’t have to save me! I would just [Sunder] him, easy!” Jake gave me an impish grin.

I laughed. “If that’s all it takes to take down a level 100 dragon, then we’re probably both out of luck. They’ll go extinct before you know it.”

Jake laughed too, but his grin vanished after a bit, and he looked a bit pensive.

“Is everything okay?” I asked him.

He sighed. “I joked about you not needing to save me, but you already did once, didn’t you? And look at how I repaid you. You saved my life, and I turned around and accused you of working with the [Demon Lord].” He looked me in the eye and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about all that mess Titus. I wish we had spent some more time together before that boss fight, then maybe I would’ve realized how ridiculous that idea was.”

I tried not to focus on how guilty I was feeling and instead said, “Ah, but I had wrath aura going back then. You would’ve been more likely to hit me than anything.”

He chuckled. “That’s true. I wonder how-“ he was interrupted by howling, and we both sprang into action.

“You see them?” he asked.

I pointed. “There! Northside of camp!” We both sprinted in that direction.

“We got monsters, everyone! Up and att’em!” Jake shouted.

By the time the party had stumbled out of their tents and gotten ready for battle, Jake and I had dispatched the last of the 10 wolves.

“You see any more?” Jake asked me.

I looked around in the dark, thankful once again for [Dark Vision]. “Nope.”

“Well, guess I can loot these, and everyone else can head back to bed.”

Garrett chuckled. “Well, getting woken up is better than becoming monster chow. Good night again, everyone.”

A slightly grumpier party headed back to bed while Jake finished up looting. “We shouldn’t be attacked again tonight, though, right?”

I like to claim that he jinxed us there, and that’s why we were attacked again during his watch. And then twice more during Garrett’s watch after that. As much as we wanted to let the party just stay asleep, the howls were waking people up anyway.

The fifth attack of the night caused Jake to finally lose it a bit. “I just wanna frickin sleep, man!” Jake said. Then he stopped and took some deep breaths before continuing. “Dang, not even wrath aura, just lack of sleep. Anyway, can we all agree that Titus’ [Monster Magnet’s] probably causing this?”

I shrugged a bit sheepishly, “Sorry, [Hero], can’t turn it off like the aura. Probably because it’s a negative perk.” I thought for a second. “I could head away from camp? Nothing out here is that scary, so I could just draw away aggro to let everyone get some sleep?”

Jake immediately asked, “All in favor?”

Several hands shot up, excluding Tim and Andrew’s. Tim tried to protest, “But what about keeping him in sight?”

“Don’t care. Too tired. Need sleep.” Jake mumbled. He looked at the hands. “Okay, majority. Off ya go, Titus.”

“I’ll meet back up with you guys in the morning then,” I said. At Jake’s noncommittal grunt, I started walking off into the woods.

How far should I go? I don’t want to be too far if I find something besides wolves, but I also don’t want to be near enough that the wolf howls wake them up again. I pondered that for a few minutes as I walked and eventually decided that was enough.

“So, it looks like I get to do some extra solo training. Is there anything I should work on?” I thought a bit. I guess I haven’t needed my SP in the past couple of fights. I could probably practice my [Elemental Strike] to try to level it up. Maybe try out things besides [Fire Strike] too? I looked at my MP. “Oh, right. I don’t know if there’s a skill associated with this, but why not. [Summon Dave].”

The light green ball of slime flopped into the snow.

“I guess just stay there for now,” I told the dave. “I probably won’t need you for anything.”

It wasn’t long before I heard another set of howls. I was soon surrounded by another pack of 10 wolves. They started circling me cautiously.

Huh, I thought. They’re acting differently than the first time I fought them by myself. They were way more aggressive then. That gave me a thought. Maybe.. Wrath aura? I flipped it active, and one wolf immediately lunged at me. I put it down with an [Earth Strike], and it was like a dam broke.

The wolves all lunged at me one after another, with a few jumping at the same time. I weaved between their attacks whenever I didn’t have time to kill them outright with an [Elemental Strike], and I made short work of them without taking any damage.

“Huh, looks like wrath aura works on mobs too,” I said. Then I remembered that I had a bunch of corpses to deal with. I guess I just… Make a pile? Not being able to loot things is a bit annoying.

I made a literal dog pile and then added to it during the next two attacks. Then something changed on the 9th and final attack of the night. An alpha finally decided to join.

At the sight of 20 wolves and an alpha, I initially panicked. Do I run? Go back to the party and get the [Hero] to [Sunder] it? I pulled back in my wrath aura to try to buy me some time. It worked, and the wolves started circling instead of attacking me immediately. No. I came to my conclusion. I’m stronger now than I was then. I’ve gained skill levels and even a new spell. That brought a grin to my face. And let’s see if we can use it.

I tried my best to watch all the wolves around me, and I intentionally turned my back on the alpha. Come on, take the bait. It didn’t, so I activated my aura. The giant wolf snarled and lunged. Now! I spun around to its left side and slammed my left hand onto its back as I shouted, “[Summon Dave]!”

The dave was smashed onto the unsuspecting wolf’s back, and I gave it the command. “Attack!”

The dave latched on, and the wolf started howling in pain even as it recovered from its jump. It immediately rolled over onto its back and started trying to get the dave off by any means necessary. It also tried to bite it but couldn’t seem to reach.

The dave held fast and continued its acidic assault.

Meanwhile, I still had wrath aura active, which meant the remaining wolves were all attacking me.

I put down the first leaping wolf with an [Ice Strike], dodged underneath the second, and spun around to elbow the third with an [Earth Strike]. I continued my deadly elemental dance with wolves until only one remained.

I was in a ready stance, and it was watching me cautiously. Then suddenly, a dave crashed into it from the side and took it down. I stared at it for a second. “Wait, you idiot! You were supposed to attack the alpha!” I turned to look at the alpha, sure that I would be on the receiving end of a storm of fangs and fur. It was already dead.

I looked at the alpha and then back at the dave. Then back at the alpha. Then back at Dave. Finally, I just laughed and scooped up the now confused ball of slime. I adopted an announcer voice. “Aaaaand the winnerrrrrrrrrrrrr. King Dave-id, the giant slayer!” I tossed it up in the air. “And the crowd goes wild!”

At that point, the dave ruined the mood by attacking me and forcing me to yell, “Get off me!”

The 12 damage I took there was the first I had been hurt the whole night, leaving me with the hard to swallow fact that my own summoned pet (and my own stupidity) did more damage to me than around 100 dark wolves.

After that fight, it was finally starting to get light out, so I headed back to camp. The party hadn’t been attacked after I left, and I got to practice my [Elemental Strike], so I thought it worked out pretty well, all things considered. Then Jake pointed out that my aura was on when I got back, and I hastily retracted it. Oops, need to remember that a bit better.

When we were finally ready to head out, the party decided on a quick detour to loot the bodies I killed since there was no point in leaving free gold.

Jake whistled when he saw the pile. “Dang, all these by yourself? And an alpha?”

“Well,” I shrugged. “Dave basically soloed the alpha. I just had to get him in range.”

We both looked down at the ball of goo that was sitting there and looking anything but impressive. “Ya know? Remind me not to underestimate any mobs in this world that are higher than level 1.”

“Agreed. Oh,” I facepalmed. “We forgot to warn Loom Bee about the daves too. We’ll have to in your next [Message].”

“You’re right. Dang,” Jake replied. Then he chuckled lightly and gave me a look. “Loom Bee?”

“It’s hard to keep coming up with things to call them, okay?”

“You could just call them by their actual party name, ya know.”

“I refuse to indulge their awful naming sense.”

Jake laughed. “Maybe our party needs a name too, then. Something edgy like the Demon Slayers.”

I gasped and gave him an offended look. “[Hero], are you racist?”

Jake’s eyes went wide. “I mean.. Uh.. I didn’t mean. I’m sorry I-“

I couldn’t hold the offended look and bust up laughing. “You should’ve seen the look on your face.”

Jake looked indignant for only a moment before laughing too. “Alright, you got me good.” He pointed a finger at me. “I’ll get you back one of these days, though!”

“You’ll try!” I smirked.

Our detour finally finished, we got back to traveling. We had been going for a few hours and were taking a walking break when Megan walked up to Jake and whispered to him. He nodded, and then she put her hand on his shoulder for a bit. When she pulled her hand away, she frowned and shook her head.

I decided to see what was up, so I went up to the pair. “Something the matter?”

“It didn’t help,” she said simply. “I still have the urge.”

I wasn’t following. “To touch his shoulder?”

“Yes, my overwhelming urge to touch shoulders that I have a system diagnosed condition for,” she said with a completely flat voice.

I was then able to follow. “Oh. So, do you think it’s because he knows that you’re [Stealing]?”

She thought about that. “Possibly. The villagers never knew, so that might be the key here.”

We decided to try again with her [Sneaking] and me distracting Jake so that he wouldn’t know when it was coming.

Eventually, Megan reappeared right in front of me and made me jump. “Would you stop doing that?” I asked with a scowl.

She shrugged. “Maybe if your reactions stop being so entertaining.”

“Okay, stop flirting, you two.” We didn’t have time to protest before he continued. “And what’d you take from me, Megan?” Jake zoned out a bit, checking his inventory. “Really? Again?”

Megan shrugged as she handed him back his sword.

Jake sighed. “Why’re you able to [Steal] it anyway when it’s a unique item only I can use?”

“Just because I can’t use it doesn’t mean it isn’t useful,” she answered. “I mean, I could still sell it.”

“But who would want a sword they can’t use?”

“Some rich schmuck probably. They’re usually the ones wanting thieves to steal weird, useless things.”

“It’s also not entirely useless,” I interjected. “She could use it to pretend to be the [Hero]!”

Jake laughed. “How would that work? No one would believe you if it just phases out of your hand as soon as you show it off.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, but will it? I bet you 10 gold… Wait, how much is 10 gold, [Hero]?”

He shrugged. “Dunno, really. I think we messed with Faroff’s economy a lot. That’s about 10 wolves worth, though.”

“Wait, wolves, drop gold?” I paused. “Sorry, off-topic. Anyway, I bet you 10 gold that I can carry your sword for more than 10 seconds!”

“Alright, you’re on.” He chuckled and handed me over his sword. He was cautious on the handover and assumed that it would phase right through my waiting fingers.

However, I remembered my lessons in the tutorial. I’m not equipping the sword. I’m just carrying it. I took the sword handle in a firm grip and then rested the flat of the blade on my shoulder. “Look at me, everyone!” I shouted to the party. “I’m the [Hero]!” I puffed out my chest and walked with a bit of a swagger.

“Wait, how are you doing that?” Jake asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m the [Hero]!” I looked over at him and adopted a more dramatic voice. “Move along, unarmed citizen, we are on a dangerous quest to defeat the [Demon Lord], and none can stand in our way!”

Sam ran over. “Wait, I thought only the [Hero] could hold that!?” she asked.

I nodded sagely. “Ah, yes, I’m the [Hero], you see. In fact, I’m actually a [Sorcerer], too, but I seem to have left my wand at home. Might I borrow yours for a moment?”

Megan caught on to the fact that I had just conned Jake out of 10 gold, so she decided to add onto it. “Sam, I bet you 20 gold that he can carry your wand around just like he is with that sword.”

“You’re on!” She answered. “He tried it in the tutorial and couldn’t! There’s no way he could now!” She thought for a second. “Wait. You didn’t get another perk, did you, Titus?”

“No, my fair [Sorceress].” I continued my fake heroic voice. “I have precisely the same perks as the last time you heard of them.”

“Okay then, game on,” she said as she thrust her wand into my other hand.

“My thanks, fair maiden,” I said. “I will make sure to slay many a demonic foe with it.” My actions didn’t exactly match up with that as I let the wand hang loosely in my hand since I was trying hard to think I was just carrying it. I’m not equipping it. I’m just carrying it. Not equipping, just carrying.

I won Megan that bet, and things got even more ridiculous. Soon I was carrying Jake’s sword, Sam’s wand, Garrett’s greataxe, Megan’s knife, and even Lindsey’s shield in an awkward bundle of deadly objects. They tried to convince Emilia to hand me a bow (even her spare one), but she refused to get in on the shenanigans.

“You do realize that we are out in the middle of nowhere with random monster attacks that could happen at any minute, right?” she asked.

I was about to tell her she was being ridiculous when a set of howls proved her right. I tried to toss people back their stuff. Unfortunately, that meant I was no longer concentrating on the fact that I was not equipping them.

All of the implements of war that I was holding onto crashed onto the ground in an awkward pile. That left us with 4 party members disarmed and Lindsey without her shield when the wolves ran onto the scene.

We were still fine because it was just 10 wolves, but the fact that Emilia, Tim, and Andrew were the ones not getting in on the fun meant that they were sure to like me even less. I mostly just shrugged because I didn’t care what they thought of me at that point.

After we finished the cleanup, Sam pestered me about how I could do that. I eventually caved. I told the party the difference between equipping things and carrying them around, which wasn’t really useful for much beyond a party trick.

The rest of our travel that day was uneventful, and we fell into a routine. Travel throughout the day, set up camp at night, I leave to go fight monsters by myself, wake up the next morning to repeat.

Nothing special happened during that except for the 4th night of our travels.

I had found a nice clearing to fight in, and I was making my usual pile of wolves when 2 daves started hopping towards me. That wasn’t an unusual occurrence since I often used my MP to summon extra daves just for fun, but I hadn’t given them any commands to come towards me.

“Daves, stop!” I shouted to the incoming balls of slime. Both of them kept hopping towards me slowly. What’s going on with those two? I started walking towards them. “I said, stop!”

The closer dave jumped and landed right in front of me. “Hey! Stop right there!” I yelled at the dave. It finally paused. Good. What’s the deal with these summons? I barely finished asking myself when the dave launched itself up onto my chest.

It burned.

“Get off! Get off!” I had finally clued into an important fact. These were not my summons. These were wild daves.

I started bashing the dave with [Fire Strikes] as quickly as I could. It took 5 hits to kill it, and I had lost 84 HP.

I eyed the other one that was hopping towards me. I ran away from it. Okay, that’s a lot of HP to lose. I could still do it, but… I looked around the clearing at the friendly daves. “Dave8! Attack that dave!”

Dave8 just sat there, so I had to run over to it and make sure it could see the other dave before I tried again. Dave8 hopped at the hostile ball of goo. The wild dave hopped at Dave8. They crashed into each other… And they just sat there.

I watched the scene for a bit. “You… Can’t hurt each other, can you?” I walked up to the pile of daves and would have poked it with a stick if I had one. I guess, try to [Fire Strike] it now?

I, fortunately, found out that daves will pretty much only attack one thing at a time. That meant I was free to [Fire Strike] kick the sitting duck to death.

The most awkward thing about the entire situation was explaining to the party why I was missing HP since that was the last fight of the night and I came back to camp wounded. With a brief reminder to the party that daves are terrifying in close range, I managed to get them to drop the matter.

It was the end of an entire week of traveling when we finally saw our objective. Or at least the correct biome for our objective.

We crested a hill, and there the swamp was. It was a stark contrast. The area inside was full of marshy ground and trees, and there wasn’t a speck of snow in sight. Meanwhile, the area outside was a snow-covered grassland. It was a bit jarring to look at.

Jake summed up our thoughts. “Well, guess we found it.”

We decided it would be best to camp outside of the swamp, at least for the first night, so we set up camp before going in to take a quick look. When we did go inside, we noticed 2 things immediately.

The first was a notification.

System: Zone entered, The Great Southern Swamp. Faction - Neutral

The second was the heat. Or at least, the relative heat. We were still in the middle of winter, but apparently, no one told the swamp that. I was fine, but everyone else started sweating in their winter gear.

“Let’s head back to camp. I don’t want to be out here when it gets dark,” Jake said.

I nodded, but then I noticed movement deeper in the water.

-----

Jake had just called for everyone to pack up but noticed Titus looking off into the water. “Hey, Titus! You coming?” he called out.

“One second!” Came Titus’ slightly distracted reply. “I think I saw something.”

“It can wait until tomorrow, come back-“ Jake was interrupted by a vine that shot out of the murky swamp water and wrapped around Titus’ leg. He was yanked into the water.

“TITUS!” Jake shouted and immediately took off towards him.

A vine shot up towards Jake, and he slashed through it. He took a deep breath and then dove into the water.

He could barely see a thing in the murky dark, but he thought he saw movement. He swam towards it. Swimming with a sword out was awkward at best, but he made due.

When he got closer, Jake could finally see Titus wrapped up in a multitude of vines. Titus was pounding on the vines with his skill, but more kept coming. Jake swam closer to help, and Titus looked up at him.

He started waving Jake away. No! I won’t leave you behind! Jake cut through some of the vines attacking Titus, but he suddenly found himself the target. He was too slow underwater, and one vine managed to wrap up his sword arm.

No! He struggled to break free, but more vines started grabbing him. Meanwhile, thanks to Jake’s involuntary distraction, Titus managed to break free and started swimming towards him. Jake also heard a splash as someone else dove in to help.

Titus started punching the vines holding Jake’s arms captive, and they managed to free his sword arm. Together, the two were making good progress towards freeing Jake completely. Then, Jake felt a desperate need to breathe, and he started taking damage.

His health bar was draining rapidly when he finally saw Garrett join in. A greataxe was perhaps the worst possible weapon to try to swing underwater, but he somehow managed to cut a few vines. Between all three of them, they managed to get Jake free and heading back towards the surface.

Garrett and Titus followed suit, but yet another vine latched onto Titus and started dragging him back down. Jake ignored his need to breathe and his rapidly declining health bar and swam down for him. Titus pointed at Jake and then back at the surface, but Jake ignored him. He swam even closer.

Then Titus decked him, and Jake just barely could hear the garbled words, “[Air Strike]!” The extra knockback from the skill pushed him up far enough for Garrett to grab hold and drag him up to the surface.

Jake took a deep breath and started to dive back in when Garrett grabbed him. “Woah bud. You’re low on HP. Andrew, we need a [Cure]!”

Andrew started casting the spell, but Jake interjected. “We can’t wait that long! Titus has to be drowning!”

He tried to dive again, but Garrett grabbed him. “Jake. Wait.”

“No! I won’t leave him to die!”

“Look at me. What’s his HP at Jake?” Garrett asked slowly.

The [Cure] went through while Jake looked at Titus’ full HP bar in confusion.

Then there was a splash, and Titus poked his head out of the water. “I must have forgotten to tell you. [Biologically Needless] means I don’t need to breathe.”

Wrath aura or no, Jake was going to strangle him one of these days.