“You sure you’re ready?” asked Fillmore, leaning on the wall of the stables. That was where they kept their horses. While walking up the mountain was difficult, riding a horse was far easier, or at least that’s what he said. Apparently, Ashley had put in a good word for him, saying that he was ‘one stubborn guy’, “That dagger was for suicides, kid. It won’t do much against them giants.”

“Yeah. But I’m a mage,” said Sean and put his hand on the mane of the horse. It was rougher than he expected, but still, the horse was comfortable to the touch. There was no real way to describe it other than the fact that it was very similar to a large dog without much fur. There was a U-shaped branding upon its left thigh on the left side. The issue was that he couldn’t ride horses, but Fillmore insisted that it’d be easy to pick up and that the horse itself knew the road.

Sean hoisted himself up by stepping on the stirrup from the left side and put his leg over the other side. Underneath his breath, he mumbled to himself, “Just like a bike, except it moves by itself.”

“Don’t crouch,” said Fillmore as he walked over and handed him his backpack. Sean wasn’t confident in getting up with his backpack on. It was almost stocked full of things now. There was his dagger, now sheathed; some rations, which amounted to jerkies, and his blue metal water bottle filled to the brim. The jerky came from a trade —granola bars for jerky. Otherwise, he’d have felt bad. That, and he had a loaf of bread inside it. The laptop which had been turned into its components was half-thrown away and half-given to Fillmore after Sean had heard he was a blacksmith, “Try to lean backward. And kid, there’s a bridge past the river. Break it on your way there.”

“Keeping the giants on the mountain?” asked Sean, raising an eyebrow as he held the reins. It was easy to keep his balance, but the horse wasn’t moving yet. They were about to practice his riding skills a bit so that he wouldn’t fall while scaling the mountain. That’d be a waste of everything.

“The opposite, feller. Keeping the giants out of the mountain. They’re coming down to the village this evening. You’ll ride through another path and cross them before making your way to the mountain. We’ll try to keep them as long as we can over here. Helthur has around a dozen boys with him. Half will come down. Helps your chances eh,” said Fillmore as he caressed the thigh of the horse slightly. Then he simply said as he slapped the back of the horse, “Go.”

It neighed and started to move forward and out the stables at a somewhat hasty rate. The sunlight blinded Sean’s eyes a slight bit as he adapted. It was a sunny day with clear skies. Natural light really couldn’t be beaten by artificial ones. And the fresh air, he finally noticed after he left the stables that smelled of manure. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and as such, Sean had kept quiet. But now, the fresh and clean air of the countryside filled his lungs. In his old, mundane life, this was his dream. Not living in the countryside part, though. If he could, he’d have a city life with fresh air and bright stars.

But it wasn’t running yet. They were in a spacious fence, and Sean didn’t quite know how to stop the horse so it kept moving around, probably tired of standing around doing nothing all day. While he never had a horse, he had a dog once and knew that some animals liked to run around outside. Given their usage as transports for a long time and National Geographic videos, Sean assumed them to be the same.

He had to admit. It was kind of fun. The horse moved somewhat bumpily in its gait and he swayed from side to side as the horse moved. So he got a bit more confident. He slightly leaned forward, and as if perfectly reading his intention, the horse sped up its gait and started to trot, almost twice as fast as before. It only became more fun, and Sean noticed they were awfully close to a fence. So he pulled on the rein to the left, turning the horse’s head to the left and the horse changed its direction as well, moving in his desired direction.

While Sean didn’t know about the logistics of it all, he liked riding horses. If he ever got one, riding it would be the least of his worries. But they were still in a controlled environment. He got comfortable with riding it within a few minutes but realized one thing. He didn’t know how to stop it. Sean pulled on the reins, but all it incited was a neigh and it kept spinning around a bit. Then he remembered —he was actually slightly leaning down. As soon as he fixed it and leaned back while pulling, the horse relaxed and stopped in place.

This was most likely a well-trained one. He had no problem with those so far.

“Ha, you sure you’ve never ridden before?” asked Fillmore as he walked up to the horse, assisting Sean in getting off. Apparently getting off was harder than getting on because riding a horse was intuitive, but trying to balance yourself while getting off a living being wasn’t. He almost tumbled with his back-first as he pulled his right leg over the back of the horse when it slightly moved, and almost instinctively, he turned toward the front so that his laptop wouldn’t be broken. It was instincts.

And a loud, pained shout sounded out from Sean’s mouth. When he was turning, he’d twisted his ankles a good thirty degrees. It was physically visible. Fillmore grabbed him and saved him from the fall, but not from his self-inflicted injury.

“Deep breaths, kiddo,” said Fillmore as he saw the source of the injury. He’d twisted his ankle while stepping on the stirrup. It was definitely a bad idea to spin around, no matter how important whatever was inside his bag was. It wasn’t the sort of injury that people could take and then keep on fighting. They were in deep trouble now, “Easy. I’ll call for someone to fix you up.”

Sean could barely see Fillmore rushing away after leaving him on the ground, gently placing him there. The horse had been startled by his shout and had run back into the stables —back to safety. While he did have decent Endurance, this sort of pain wasn’t something he was used to. Far from it. He hated any sort of extreme pain, despite being more or less resistant to lesser ones. If he had to take a punch in the face, he would. But a knife to the hand? No, thank you.

He didn’t know when, but the pain faded away quite quickly. He summoned the Status Screen and saw his HP. It wasn’t all that low, but the injury was still there, despite the pain lessening. So far for his theory about being able to recover from broken bones with Health Regeneration. Still, this was a good reality check. So it was safe to assume that injuries decreased HP, but didn’t drop it so much? Or maybe he’d recovered quite a bit. Maybe it only measured his vitals and how fast his vital organs would recover after being damaged?

“You alright?” shouted Ashley from the distance. She had a basket in her hand as she ran to him, and an older man was accompanying him. He had a dark, grizzly beard that stretched to almost his belly and a bald head, wearing an old tunic much like most of the people around the place and was somewhat taller than Fillmore, who was a slight bit taller than Sean himself.

“Somewhat,” said Sean and pushed himself up to a sitting position. The pain wasn’t unbearable now, but moving the ankle elicited a groan. It didn’t help that Ashley was turning it around as if to check which side was less injured, “Now will you stop that? That’s not helping.”

She turned to look at Fillmore and shook her head, and spoke, “He won’t make it. So much for taking a few of them down.”

“Hey hey, don’t you guys have a health potion or something?” asked Sean, slightly panting from bearing through all the pain, hoping that they did. It was a fantasy world. If the System didn’t recover that and there were no convenient health potions, then it meant he’d take several weeks! That was ridiculous, “Damn. This is the most anti-climactic way to go.”

“You can wait,” added Fillmore, but the other man glared at him for that. Why Sean didn’t know, but he was almost seething. Ever since Ashley made her diagnosis, his neutral expression had changed to that of anger, almost rage, “Samson, he’s a mage. The giants won’t expect that.”

“And you asked me to believe in this child. He went and got injured getting off a thrice-damned horse! How in the nine heavens will he save Ash?” the man almost screamed out, his voice cracking as he did so. He then looked at Ashley after climbing back to his feet, “This is ridiculous. Go prepare. We’re riding out the village.”

“You know you can’t do that, Sam,” said Fillmore, tapping him on the shoulder, “They’ll take their anger out on the village. Everyone will die.”

“And do I look like I care?” asked the man, the metaphorical venom in his words almost ready to become corporeal. But Ashley didn’t stand up and kept kneeling by Sean’s side. She pulled out what appeared to be a leaf and placed it on his ankles, which sent a refreshingly cold sensation through his leg, “Ash, now!”

“No, I’m staying,” said Ashley, finally, “Don’t you think that’s too selfish? Leaving them out here to die? Don’t you feel guilt, father?”

“Don’t make me do this, Ash,” said Ashley’s father as he stepped forward. Fillmore only glared from the side, hands crossed. The father then grabbed her forearm and pulled, and almost effortlessly pulled her up and hoisted her up on his shoulder, “I’ll teach you manners, and then I’ll drag you out the village.”

“Samson, remember that it was your choice,” said Fillmore, who only got a growl in response. Not worth getting into family problems.

“Put her down,” said Sean, finally joining the conversation. He thought he knew what was going on now. The giants had some business with Ashley, for some reason, and the father was trying to escape with her. If he took her away, however, the village would most likely be destroyed. But Sean couldn’t blame the overprotective father, “It’s her own choice.”

But he didn’t listen.

So on a whim, Sean raised his finger and imagined the sigils. This time, it was different. Before, he focused on the spells. This time, he focused on the intent. And that was when a notification popped up. He didn’t care. Not at the moment. So he pushed the notification sideways and away from his vision.

A duo of magical circles of blue appeared from his fingertip and when he tapped on it, a baseball-sized ball of blue light appeared from the one at the front. And then the second circle merged with the Mana Ball, the mana that composed the circle being devoured by it before the ball was propelled with impressive speed —around 30 miles per hour. For a moment, Sean’s eyes glowed a gentle blue, but they faded just as quickly.

The ball, on the other hand, swept right past Samson, too close to his ear for his liking. Mana Balls weren’t hot, but they sizzled and buzzed as if they were, not to mention the sound of something small and compact flying right past you. The whoosh sound was warning enough, and Samson stopped his gait.

And Sean dropped a line he thought he never would, “Put her down, or the next one won’t miss.”

It was cheesy, but that was its charm. And that was one thing off his bucket list. While he would not abuse his own gifts to inconvenience others, his power was starting to get to his head. It was so easy, shooting a Mana Ball. It was like reciting a simple equation of 1 + x = 2 and then finding x. While it was still not instinctive, it was simple.

“Know your place, child. The blood of the berserkers flows through my veins,” said Samwell, gritting his teeth. And Fillmore raised an eyebrow at him, and shook his head as if saying ‘If you’re thinking about trying him, don’t’. But Sean was a stubborn mule. It took a special kind of stubbornness to fix trashy code as a programmer.

“And my ancestor was a vampire hunter,” said Sean sarcastically, with a chuckle, to boot. He climbed to his feet, standing on one leg using his hands to support himself as he did. The pain was still there whenever he tried to stand on his left leg, but putting his entire weight on the right one helped ease the pain, “Your point is?”

As for his background, it was a running gag. One of the characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula went by the name of Quincey Morris, and Sean’s father always joked about them being a family of hunters. He, and most of his uncles. But alas, it was only a fictional tale perceived by a fantasy author.

“You don’t throw that title casually, child,” said Samwell, gritting through his teeth. He’d finally let go of Ashley and had turned to look at Sean. He spotted Ashley running back to the village. Why, he did not know and did not care. This was quite honestly the very first fight he’d picked, but he had to at the very least take this man down. How else would he fight the giants? But the closer Samson got, the more Sean’s confidence lessened —this man was almost three of him stacked sideways!

“Now now, if the boy is speaking the truth, he might as well be worth keeping around, eh?” asked Fillmore as he finally intervened, coming between them. That made the difference in their height very apparent. Samson stood a head taller than Fillmore, who was a bit taller than Sean, but in width they were close. It was apparent who was larger and would beat the other in physical combat, “Them hunters are monsters. If he’s even a tiny bit like them, then this’ll get ugly.”

Samson bit his lips and growled as he stared at Fillmore’s eyes, and then he turned to the side and spit to the ground. And he walked away.

***

“Were you lying, kiddo?” asked Fillmore as he put a plate with a fried fish before him. His home reeked of fish, with many of them hanging from a string tied from the window frame. Most of them were dried, so probably smoked. The one in front of him, however, was fresh. If Sean didn’t know better, he’d assume the old man to be a fisher rather than a smith, “About being of hunter blood.”

He’d been supported by Fillmore on the way back to the house. It was quite far from the stables. Apparently, the village had a single stable, and everyone kept their horses there. There was apparently a farm a fair distance away, closer to the river, which seemed to not have much bounty. They made a living eating fish most of the time, and rarely cattle —they were often saved as tithes to Helthur. Not only this village, too.

“I was…” started Sean, and then he thought about it. Was he lying? It wasn’t all that much of a lie as much as it was an exaggeration. So he played dumb, “I don’t know. My father always says that we are.”

“Then you probably are,” said Fillmore and looked at his ankle. Then raised an eyebrow, “Your ankle. Does it hurt?”

“Not unless I put pressure on it,” said Sean as he tried to do so, which elicited a groan. It was definitely far better than when he first got the injury. Maybe that was only the shock and this was the aftereffects. Not that he’d know, having never gotten any injury greater than a cut from a kitchen knife, from when he accidentally cut his finger while cooking, “Why?”

“Back when I found you. Why were you lying there?” asked Fillmore, now closer. He’d crossed his fingers as if praying and had put both elbows on the table. And he was resting his head on his knuckles, which were now together. Fillmore’s eyes which were usually vacant or joking were now dead serious as he stared at Sean’s eyes intently, “You weren’t sleeping, were you?”

“No… I’d taken a fall. While climbing it. Around 8 meters in height,” said Sean, not understanding what he was implying, “Why?”

“When I found you, I saw blood. Under your head, there was a pool of it, but you were breathing. So I put you on the carriage and brought you home. You woke in a day after that,” said Fillmore and suddenly stood up. Sean furrowed his brows as he warily followed Fillmore with his eyes. Out of nowhere, he grabbed a kitchen knife and started to walk toward him. Sean stumbled to his feet in surprise, the wooden chair he was sitting on falling from the imbalance caused by him hitting its back on his way up, “People don’t do that, kiddo. Not ordinary ones, at least. You’re a hunter, through and through.”

“No no, I shouldn’t be. My world doesn’t have monsters,” said Sean as he backed a step each time Fillmore stepped forward. This situation was the same as that one with the golden snake from the Spellbook. Soon, his back would be against the wall and he’d end up getting pushed into a corner, “I’m not whatever you think I am. It’s probably because of the system.”

“Your Vitality Stat and Health Regeneration, then,” said Fillmore, and he twirled the knife and aimed the handle at Sean. If he was correct, the handles didn’t kill people, so he visibly calmed down. Fillmore was clearly trying to give the knife to him, just like before, and Sean accepted it and pulled the knife from his hands, “How much is it? The ratio with your health. How long does it take you to get back to full health?”

“Seventeen minutes, last I checked. My Durability is 17 and Vitality is 100,” said Sean, slowly. Was that abnormal? Then Fillmore clapped his hands and walked around in circles with a smirk while shaking his head. While he did so, he waved his hand with an index finger stuck out up and down. Then he started to cackle, like a madman, “What’s wrong?”

“Kid, you are a hunter!” said Fillmore as he rushed back to Sean, and cupped his hands around Sean’s. He then shook his head with a grin, and Sean spotted a few stray tears, “You might just murder those thrice-damned menaces. Ha! Who knew a hunter out of all those Outlanders would come this time. Heavens bless.”

“Fillmore… what’s yours?” asked Sean, slowly and quietly.

“My Durability’s 34 but my Vitality is a meager 12, boy. In my youth, it used to be twenty,” said Fillmore.

What the hell?