Once Daniel finished his explanation, the conversation fell back into a lull. Daniel didn't seem to have anything he wanted to talk about, and the only thing Victoria wanted to talk about, she had promised they would do so later. So instead they walked side by side in companionable silence.

Of course, it wasn't like Victoria just did nothing. She was constantly fiddling with her system, trying to figure out what commands worked and what she could do with them.

The first thing she realized was that she didn't have to actually say the commands out loud. As long as she was thinking them clearly it worked just as well, though the results were different.

If she said the commands out loud, the result would be more physical, and if she thought the commands, she would just become aware of it, more like a memory than a picture.

Also, she confirmed with Daniel that other people can only interact with her system if she gives voice commands.

Another thing she figured out, was how to get details on parts of her status. Most of them were pretty redundant and just state the obvious, especially for the skills, but she found two very interesting things.

Wife T1

A Wife takes care of the household and her husband.

Stats per level:

End: 0.3 Str: 0 Con: 0.3 Wp: 0.3 Ma: 0 Mp: 0 Free: 1

Skill experience multiplier:

Household: 1 * 1.1 * 1.2 = 1.32

Fashion: 1 * 1.1 * 1.2 = 1.32

Others: 1 * 1.1 * 0.1 = 0.11

The details of her class. While the description was still annoying her a bit, the rest of the information was very valuable.

First was her stat distribution. While she wasn't entirely sure how she could get a third of a stat, it was good to know where she had to put her free stats, and how many she got in the first place. Of course, she was planning to distribute her stats equally, she would need to if she wanted to be the best at everything after all.

And then, there was the skill experience multiplier. At first sight, it looked like getting combat skills would get very, very hard. Not impossible, but they would level extremely slowly.

But Victoria wasn't hopeless. After all, being the best at everything, included martial arts. And although she had to accept the fact that getting to a competitive level in any one martial art would be far too time-consuming, she didn't change her goals. But instead of learning them one by one, she had started to go through them one by one, only ever staying long enough until she understood the core principles and could handle their respective weapons, with the end goal of developing her own style.

Then, she realized something. While her High-heels skills definitely belonged in the Fashion category, that didn't mean they wouldn't apply in a fight. As long as she was wearing High-heels, her skills would make it easier to keep her balance and give her a more secure stand, both things that are very important in martial arts.

What that meant was simple. The systems skill categories were pretty arbitrary. As long as she found the right skills, and trained them to high enough levels, they should be useful in a fight even if they weren't combat-skills. If her skills allowed her to have a better balance with High-heels than without? So be it.

But there was one more thing regarding the skill experience multipliers. The other ten percent bonus that applied to all skill types. At first, she didn't understand it, but it didn't take her long to figure it out.

It came from the second, and probably even more important description she found in her status. The description of her talent.

Learning Lv. 1 (0/55 exp)

+(10*Lv.)% to all experience

+(10*Lv.)% to all stats

Current bonus:

End: 1

Str: 1

Con: 1

Wp: 1

Ma: 1

Mp: 1

Again, there were several things to note.

The most obvious one was, that with every level in her talent, she would get increasingly higher Boni to her skill experience and stats. While Victoria had previously been a bit hesitant about distributing her stats equally, considering how few she had, the potential of her talent cleared her of all doubts.

But, while the bonus stats were good and all, there was something much more important. With a bit of math, and a comparison of her own and Daniel's experience requirements, Victoria quickly built a theory, which was then confirmed by Daniel.

That is, every time she goes up a level, her talent earns experience equal to her new level. One point if she gets to level one, two for level two, and thirty-three for level thirty-three. At the same time, the experience required, increase by a hundred with every level in the talent. What that meant was simple: normally you would gain one level in your talent every ten levels. Normally that is.

Because that rule, may very well not apply to Victoria, depending on whether the bonus experience also applied to the talent itself. If it did, well it could potentially trigger exponential growth. Which... She figured would be pretty unlikely, but she could always hope.

Only once Victoria thought that she couldn't find anything truly important in her system, did she finally stop looking and started to concentrate on something else. And since she had nothing better to do than walking, and since the novelty of the gigantic trees had worn off quicker than expected, she decided to concentrate on training her skills, only interrupted if she saw the occasional gigantic squirrel or woodpecker.

Well, she didn't actually see the woodpecker more than she heard it. At first, she thought it was a lumberjack since the sound was a lot slower and louder, but only until she realized how impractical it would be to use the trees of this forest. Even with strength like Daniels, the logistics would be horror. But seriously, did was everything in this forest so oversized?

Actually, that made her wonder. The Squirrels had been too far away to see, but what were they called? Dire Squirrels? And the Woodpecker would then be a Dire Woodpecker?

It was only a short time after her last skill reached level five that they finally found the edge of the forest. From one moment to the next, the trees just stopped, making a place for a big expanse of rolling green plains, only interrupted by the occasional bush or tree, or a herd of grazing oversized cows.

Great, Dire Cows...

Now that she could see the Sun for the first time, Victoria noticed that it was already getting pretty late. Luckily, Victoria could already see the city in the distance, easily in walking distance. Well, City was actually the wrong word. A fort would be the better descriptor as it was made up of about ten wooden houses and two large barracks surrounded by palisades.

Once they stepped onto the planes, it didn't take much longer until they reached the fort's entrance where they were promptly greeted by a man in full-plate-armor carrying a spear.

"Oh! It's good to see more people coming here. I don't know whether your luck is good or bad, considering you came out of the Dire-Woods alive. I hope you haven't lost anyone on the way.", the man greeted them.

"No, we were the only ones. But thanks for the sentiment.", Victoria answered, silently lamenting the on-the-nose naming sense.

"I took care of the wolves in the area before we came here, but I haven't met anyone else.", Daniel explains.

"Could it be... Are you the Hero perhaps?", the man asks excitedly.

Daniel answers shyly: "Ah, yes I am."

"It's an honor to meet you!", the guard excitedly shakes Daniel's hand: "We have been waiting for you to come. Do you see that bigger building with the bell over there? If you go there they will tell you where you are needed. I'm sorry to rush you, but there is never enough time to prepare for the wave.

In the meantime, I will process your friend here."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"That should be my question. Don't worry, I can take care of myself.", Victoria answers confidently.

"Later then."

Victoria waves him off, then turns back to the guard and asks: "You said there wasn't enough time to prepare? Can you tell me what's going to happen?"

"Your friend didn't tell you? Ah, doesn't matter. You remember the notice you got, the one with the timer? Basically, when the timer reaches zero, a whole slew of monsters is going to spawn and attack every single city.", the guard explains.

"If I may be honest, this doesn't look a lot like a city."

"Well, we are still new. Okay, let me explain from the start. When one wave ends, a certain number of people gets a system message that tells them to build a new city and guides them to the location, usually around twenty to thirty people. Those people then got around a month to start building the city until the wave starts at the end of the month. Over the next four days, people start then appearing in the surroundings and are led to the city. You got lucky and came right on the first day, so it's still a bit empty, but we got twenty-five original settlers so we expect around ten times that number of people to appear. And then, when the timer runs out, the monsters appear and we have to defend the city.

If we succeed we have a new city, if not the survivors can go somewhere else, and the cycle repeats."

"So, there are waves once per month? But isn't it pretty dangerous to be a settler?"

"Yep, to both. It's definitely dangerous to be a settler, but if you don't do it you get penalized."

"Penalized? In what way?", she was really wondering what kind of punishment could move people to do something like that. Victoria had no idea how many monsters that wave would consist of, but defending a bunch of newbies with just over twenty people sounded pretty dangerous. Well, she guessed that why there were heroes.

"Bad luck."

Victoria lifts one eyebrow questioningly. Where they now in the territory of superstitions? Well, she figured, she just learned that magic was real, not too long ago.

"No, no, I'm not talking about the seven-years-of-bad-luck-for-breaking-a-mirror kind of bad luck, ehm... Sorry, I didn't even ask for your name. I'm Garry by the way.", Garry the helpful guard introduced himself.

"Please, call me Victoria."

"Okay, Miss Victoria. I had a friend who got chosen as a settler, he ignored the message for almost half a month. At first, not much happened. He would trip a bit more often, throw down stuff. He stubbed his pinky five times in just as many days, poor guy. But that was only the first week. From then, it got worse. He got into several accidents per day until he almost died. It stopped the moment he started preparations to leave. If you don't go, you get bullied into it if you want or not.

And if you want to know why other cities don't help, well, the bigger the city, the bigger the wave, so even already established cities have no personnel to spare."

"Thanks for the explanation, Garry. Now, where should I go?"

"Your class tier?"

"Tier One."

"Your highest skill multipliers?"

"Household and Fashion.", Victoria wasn't very happy that she had to share this information, but she understood that it was necessary.

"Tch, lucky bastard.", Garry exclaimed.

"What do you mean?", Victoria asked curiously. Curiously, because she had a distinct feeling the bastard wasn't her.

"Ah, there is this saying, or at least that's what the heroes always say. A person's class is the crystalization of their destiny. I mean, I tried myself as a hunter before I was chosen, but now that I'm here I quite like the job. Try guessing what my class is."

"Guard?", Victoria made the obvious guess.

"Sorry, no prize for you. The question was too easy.", Garry joked.

"Anyway, you should go and help out the seamstress. The building with the Yarn and needle sign. When you have introduced yourself, go to the barracks and take and get some sleep. As a tier one level zero, you will definitely need it."

"Thanks. Oh, one more question. Is there any way to not get chosen as a settler?", Victoria quickly asks before leaving.

"The obvious question, eh? Well, it's only been a bit over a year since this started, but the running theory is that a hero can't become a settler, no way out for us normal folks. But if you were a settler once already, you won't be chosen again. At least that's what the theory says.

Oh, right, welcome to the Dire-fort!"

Victoria wanted to groan, but she didn't. Now back in public, she had an image to keep up.