After we exited the fields of Embry and was on our way to Yallow we began discussing my skills. Although having said that, there were very few skills I had that they knew of. They did not know any magic, even Kiyara who was an elf who were beings originally born from magic had no aptitude for magic. They had also never heard of any of my Boon skills and Mind palace was like magic out of their area of expertise. In the end, there was only one skill they or rather Franz knew of. Soul weapon.

“The fact that you had that at level one is a cruel joke to those that stride the path of a singular weapon.” He said and spat out of the wagon.

“I sort of got that it is a very good skill…” Franz interrupted me.

“GOOD?!” Franz shouted and laughed dryly. “It is a Gods’ damned rank FOUR skill!” Franz was outraged and the others looked at me with annoyance. I wanted to ask how good a fourth ranked skill was, but I doubted that would be a smart thing to do right now. Also I was quite sure that I already knew the answer.

“So um, how does a rank four skill stack up to a special skill?” I asked, trying to gauge the strength of Soul weapon against my other skills.

“That is impossible to tell.” Franz stated flatly. “Special skills are just that, special. They always fall out of the norm. The only thing you can tell for certain with special skills is that they are generally proportional to the wielder's strength.” Franz gumbled a bit and then took a calming breath. “On the other hand, to even obtain Soul weapon one must evolve the advanced skill Bound weapon three times.” He shook his head wistfully. “Just evolving a skill twice is the labour of a lifetime for most people…” He looked at me with mixed emotions. “To be effectively born with it… champions sure are loved by the gods.” He sighed deeply. “The highest skill I have is Weapon mastery 9 which is a rank three skill, and that has taken my entire life to obtain.

“…” I was stunned. And thus, I could understand the resentment in their eyes. “I guess I should be really thankful for the gifts I received…” The others gave me a look, like that, was the understatement of the century.

We kept talking about my skills and what they did as the wagon creaked along the road at a far less leisurely pace than yesterday. The others were also very interested in my log, but I was mostly interested in why the thorough beating I had received before lunch did not even count as an attack in my log.

“That’s obviously because I didn’t attack you?” Franz said, sounding confused. Gilana wore a sympathetic expression and Kiyara just nodded as if what Franz had said was obvious.

We kept talking and I learned a lot of things. Such as Espers being a thoroughly foreign concept to the three. “With magic being quite common, and humans able to reach superhuman levels of strength, speed and endurance I guess new concepts of power might end up feeling even more out of place here than in a world without such things at all.” I mused “After all if genuine superpowers are, well maybe not readily available in this world. They are at least obtainable.”

“This however raises the question, why the fuck do I have it? Why was ‘Esper’ a boon I could select when it doesn’t even exist in the first place? Are these powers exclusive to me? Or is it only something only champions have access to? Or maybe, it is common in some distant part of the world… Savani is ginormous after all.” I did not really find any answers to my questions, but when I did show off my meagre telekinetic skill, the others were well, less than impressed.

“Looks like a skill that’d be useful for a lazy person.” That was Gilana’s honest opinion. “Has it grown any stronger?”

“Um, not much… since I upgraded it to a special skill by accident it has maybe become half again as strong.” I gave the best answer I could with the impression I had of the skill.

“Yeah… you are banned from using your skill points until I say so.” Franz said flatly and I nodded meekly. “But for now I want you to use your Telekinesis on yourself whenever you train.”

“Hu?” I looked at Franz in incomprehension.

“When you swing your training sword I want you to ‘push back’ on that sword with your skill. I feel like that’d be a good way to train your swordsmanship,muscles, mind and that skill at the same time.” Franz nodded at his own words, looking like that had been the best idea ever. I just frowned, I didn’t even have the slightest idea for how I might even go about that. When Franz noticed my consternation he spoke with a smile. “Since we will be traveling until nightfall, we will have to do some of your training on the move. So, let’s start with some seated practise swings.” Frans grinned and tossed my training short sword to me and took out his stick from god knows where. I failed to grab the tossed sword and it hit me in the face painfully, the other had a good laugh from that.

The… I hesitate to call it practice, was a painful exercise in frustration. I had to swing my ‘sword’ (we had given up on calling my Soul weapon a ‘knife’ at some point, so I was now taught ‘proper swordsmanship) while seated which was very awkward.

If nothing else, this ‘practice’ keenly taught me the difference in sound a stick made, as it was swung through the air with different amounts of force behind it. “To think that I’d learn how to tell what kind of error I have made by sound…” What I didn’t learn was how to ‘push’ against my own strikes with my Telekinesis. It was like trying to have my brain do two conflicting actions at the same time, it was beyond hard.

By the time Franz decided I had had enough my brain was hurting even more than my arms and hands. As Franz told Brian to slow down the wagon so that I could jog behind it. I must have done something during the practice as my Will had reached 0. I even had to wipe away a droplet of blood from my nose, after which I ran. I lost track of time and when I started stumbling about with a completely drained energy bar, Franz easily dragged me into the wagon where I collapsed on the floorboards.

“Before you fully pass out, do retrieve one of the lesser potions and some water from that magical storage of yours.” Franz said warmly and I did so. He then had me drain the rather foul potion and drink almost half a water skin. After that I passed out.

I woke up as we came to a stop that night in front of a rather large inn. I was still dead tired but unlike what I had expected, I was not allowed to go straight to bed like I wanted.

“You slept almost all the way here!” Franz laughed. “You have yet to finish your evening swings, also you stink. So you need to wash yourself and your armour before bed either way.” I groaned and received another lesson (beating) from Franz before I washed myself and my already stinking leather armour in cold well water. I don’t even remember how I got to my bed.

In the morning I was greeted by the ginning face of Franz who had brought a very large tray filled with breakfast items to the room that we apparently shared.

“Eat as much as you can, then put the rest in your storage and eat the rest on the way.” After that he pulled me out of the bed and pushed me into the sole chair by the table and watched me eat. It was rather unnerving to have Franz both stare at me and ‘urge’ me to keep eating. Simon chose this moment to poke out of my sleeve and nab a sausage. He sent me a somewhat displeased emotion.

“Um, Franz?” I said between bites.

“Yes, Goldie.” He answered and I frowned at the nickname.

“Could we swing by a butcher before we leave? I need some more food for Simon.”

“I doubt any butchers are open this early.” Franz said with a chortle. “It’s not even dawn yet.

“Hu?” I made a dumb sounding noise as I looked out the dark window. “I really need to stop sounding like an idiot every time I get confused.” I thought, embarrassed.

“Besides” Franz smiled widely. “We are going hunting today.” A shiver ran down my spine at the bloodthirsty expression on Franz’s face. “So there will be plenty of food for ‘Simon’ today.” Simon sent me an approving sense and I began to seriously wonder how smart my Snake really was.

By daybreak we were standing by the eastern gate of Yallow and the other three seemed rather excited. Or well, Franz and Gilana were very excited, Kiyara looked much the same as always.

“So um, why are we on foot?” I asked as we exited the town.

“Brian is only contracted to take us to the border of the kingdom, this being a bit of an excursion, means that this is outside of his job.” Gilana explained practically skipping with glee.

“Didn’t we have some sort of deadline?” I asked. “I think I remember the head of the Explorers guild giving off the impression that this was a ‘with all due haste’ sort of deal.”

“Naa, that old hag gave no clear date so we are fine to do some minor detours on the way.” Gilana said without any concern. I would have argued but was unable to as we picked up the pace and I was suddenly more preoccupied with more important stuff, like breathing.

By the time my Energy bar was closing in on zero, the landscape around us had changed. Gone were the fertile and gently sloping grassland and ahead I could see a rather stunted forest that ran from south to north as far as the eye could see. Around the base of most of the trees I could see both flowing and stagnant water that gently flowed or simply sat around the roots of the stunted trees. By the coast this would be called a mangrove inland like this…

“Welcome to one of the world's great wonders and a true cesspit of monsters, beasts and leeches.” Gilana said, as she spread her arms around and gestured at the bog. “The outskirts of the endless swamp, the great Yallow bog!” It was truly a sight, a truly astounding array of different shades of greens and browns (mostly just browns, if I’m going to be honest).

I looked around and back at where we had come from. I noticed that the road we had been running on gently sloped downward towards the bog. Ahead of us the road itself turned sharply, heading north, avoiding the bog entirely. I found that a bit comforting, the roads in this world had this far been almost disturbingly straight, which might be normal for earth but here it had just felt off. I snapped back to reality as Gilana’s rant about the many things that lived in the bog came to an end.

“Coradras, leeches, Bats and leeches. And did I mention leeches?” She added.

“You did, at least four times. Also I don’t know what half of the thing you mentioned is. Is there anything in particular I should be on the lookout for?” I asked and Gilana looked at the others who shrugged.

“Well, just about anything in here is stronger than you and would like nothing more than to feast on your scrawny body.” Franz said matter-of-factly. “But we are here so nothing in the bog should prove to be too much of a challenge.” He patted his axe confidently. But then he had to go and ruin the moment by adding something I really, really wish he hadn’t. “That said, there are plenty of horrors in the swamp itself, and sometimes they wander out in the bog. But those instances are rare and even then it is only the things that live in the outer swamp that are either pushed out or gets bored. So the only ones we would have to look out for are greater Coradras and trolls I suppose.”

“Do you know what a flag is?” I asked Franz with a flat look.

“You mean the painted cloths that are used to signify nations and such?” Franz asked, confused, wondering why I would bring that up.

“No, no. Not at all. I mean like standing in the rain without an umbrella and saying ‘It can’t get much worse than this’ only to end up being struck by lightning.” I said, very unhappy about the idea of having to face a troll, or whatever a greater Coradras was. “What even is a Coradras?” I asked unhappily.

“Ahha, it is a scaled six or eight legged lizard that hides in the bog and ambushes its prey with its massive jaw filled with multiple rows of serrated teeth.” Franz explained helpfully. “An alligator shark?” I wondered, imagining such a creature.

“Greater ones have a far longer tails, thicker scales and can swallow an ox whole.” Gilana supplemented. “They also taste crazy good!” She added dreamily.

“I think I’d prefer cake.” I muttered as Kiyara vanished into the treetops.

“What?” Gilana asked, utterly confused.

“Nothing…” I had for a moment been thinking about adding ‘tastes like human’ but I had absolute confidence that someone from another world would in fact, not get the joke. Franz chose this point to tell me to finish the rest of my breakfast. So I did, or well most of it. Even the half that remained, food was more than I had ever eaten in a single sitting. When I finished, my energy had recovered to 67/94 and it had slowed down. I was still not sure how that worked, but apparently I had had enough rest and we started moving into the forest on what looked like a game trail that Kiyara had scouted as I had been busy eating.

The trail was out of the water but not by much and I could hear my boots squelch as I walked through the damp mud and I could both feel and see my stamina drain as we made our way deeper into the bog. I was pleasantly surprised that the bog did not smell as bad as I had imagined. “There must be enough circulation here that everything doesn’t just rot.” I was more than a little distracted by the strange surrounding of trees, bogs and gently flowing rivers to notice Franz and Gilana’s look back at me disappointedly. It stands to reason then that I might also have missed the cause behind their disappointment, and by might, I mean that I definitely did .

SPLOSH! The water next to me erupted and a large toothy maw appeared out of nowhere ready to take my leg of. “UUAHGA!” I shouted incoherently and was shoved out of the way of the mew by Franz while Gilana almost chopped the head of the beast in a blindingly fast swing of her sword.

As I fell into the mud, I got a very close look at my first Coradras and it was not pretty. The mouth of the beast was rounder than that of an alligator or crocodile, and it was filled with countless serrated teeth and mud. It had mud coloured skin, or scales I guess, that camouflaged it perfectly in the bog.

This was the extent of the reflections I managed before I made a ‘mud angel’ and had more important things to think about. “You know when I said the bog didn’t stink as much as I thought? I was wrong.” The mud stank, badly. I must have simply been the breeze at our back that kept fresh air coming and thus making it feel like the bog was not such a bad smelling place.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked as I made my way out of the mud trying and mostly failing to get as much of the foul stuff off of me as possible.

“You were not paying any attention. I could let him bite you next time?” Franz asked innocently.

“…” I wanted to retort but he was right. I hadn’t been paying enough attention, even though they had told me that basically everything that lived here was stronger than I. “Not that my level of strength is anything to brag about.” So I just shook off all the mud I could and did my damnedest to pay attention to my surroundings as I followed Franz. My efforts were at least somewhat rewarded as Franz looked back with an approving nod. Soon Franz stopped me and pointed out the next threat.

“You must not forget to look up, especially in caves or forest like this.” Franz said and pointed at a VERY large bat that was hanging from a tree about 10 meters ahead and to the left. The bat must have noticed us as well because it screeched and launched itself at us. “Now, most flying beasts are light creatures, so their attacks are generally light and fast.”

Franz said this as he jumped up and kicked off a tree leaving an imprint of his metal boots in the bark. He then grabbed the bat that was as large as him out of the ait and wrestled it to the ground. It was a feat of acrobatics beyond anything I had ever seen, and in the blink of an eye Franz was holding down the futilely scrambling bat by the neck.

“Now come and finish it off if you would.” Franz said, looking at me without a care in the world.

“Um, is that all right?” I asked, feeling a bit like it would be like kill stealing in an RPG.

“Why do you think we are here?” Franz asked, irritated by my lack of understanding. Apparently, it was more along the lines of power-leveling than kill stealing. So I killed the bat and felt like something trickled into me as soon as its life faded.

“Well that is a disconcerting feeling.” I said not remembering ‘that’ happening when I had killed the wolf.

“You will get used to it.” Gilana said and stopped herself from giving me a clap on the shoulder. I was still filthy after all. “It is the feeling you get when you steal some of the essence from anything you kill. You will get used to it” She added the last part with an ambivalent shrugg.

“Anything?” I was a bit disconcerted.

“Yeah.” Gilana looked me dead in the eye. “If you kill a monster, a beast, a demon or even a human, you steal a portion of their power in the form of essence.” I swallowed hard at those words. “That is one of the reasons why humans are so eager to wage war.” She added darkly.

“Is it only humans that can do that?” I was a bit taken aback.

“Hardly.” Kiyara said from behind me and I almost fell back into one of the bogs as I spun around in fright. “Humans are just very efficient at it, likely due to your short lives.” Kiyara said with an almost expressionless mask on her face. I say almost, because I am sure I could see an ever so light smile tug at her lips.

“Welcome back.” Gilana said with a big smile. “Did you find a good spot?”

“Yes, there is a raised area and what I believe to be a medium sized Gruver warren.” Kiyara reported. “Should be able to get them good and riled up with a smoke bomb or two.” She added with a satisfied grin. Her smile looked rather evil to me but I chose not to say so. “All three of my companions can be quite terrifying at times…” I thought with a bit of regret.

Suddenly my thought was interrupted by Simon ‘Heart’. I sighed and walked over to the dead bat that I could feel Simon look at through my own eyes. It was a somewhat creepy sensation. The other looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“Greater Coradras aside, most things you will find in here tastes like what you’d expect out of something that lives in a swamp.” Franz said sceptically. He must have thought that I wanted it for myself.

“Simon wanted the heart.” I stated flatly and began digging out said organ. Which to be fair wasn’t very hard when my ‘tool’ aka my Soul weapon cut through the beast like there was nothing there. As soon as I had the heart free of the chest Simon shot out and swallowed it effortlessly and sent me a pleased sensation. “You didn’t want the heart of the crocodile thing though?” I ‘thought’ at Simon and he sent me ‘Disgusting’ and I decided to leave it at that. “Maybe he doesn’t like eating reptiles.”

We kept walking and my legs were beginning to feel really heavy by the time we reached a raised clearing with two otter/monkey looking things. The two ‘things’ looked at us with beady eyes and then flexed their sloth-like claws before they ran into the water leaving behind the carcass of a small Coradras.

“Alright, let's set up some basic defences while Kiyara smokes the Gruvers.” Gilana said and started cutting off a few branches of the nearby trees. She then trimmed those and sharpened them into basic stakes, these Franz stuck into the ground around the centre of the clearing. “Help me get some more branches Goldie, try to aim for branches that are as straight as possible.

I did as asked and in no time at all we had two simple rings of stakes sat up around us. By the time we had finished the second ring, Kiyara leapt off a branch and landed with the grace of a cat by Gilana with a somewhat embarrassed look in her colour shifting eyes.

“What?” Gilana asked with eyes narrowed.

“So… I might have been a rather deep burrow.” Kiyara said evasively.

“How deep?” Gilana said flatly.

“Um, quite deep.” Kiyara looked away but at Gilana’s glare she sighed and spoke up. “Okey , it might be very deep. Like um, you know… queen sized deep.” At this point Franz and Gilana started cursing up a storm and their casual postures shifted into far more battle ready stances. They did this as the ground started to rumble. ‘

“Victor, you stay in the middle, kill anything that makes it past the three of us quickly.” Gilana barked and readied her sword. “If you grow too tired to fight, say so and we will adapt. Your other job is to feed us potions, only use the medium potions if we get REALLY hurt.” She finished speaking as a horde of the otter/monkey looking creatures burst out of the water and what little vegetation was left at ground level. The carnage that followed was easily the most hectic hour or so of my two lives.

I endlessly stabbed and cut, I only stabbed and cut until my arms ached with exertion. Then in every single moment of ‘down time’ I handed over potions to the others as they took the brunt of the Gruvers attacks. More than once did they damned things reach me and scratch at my armour but it held. The few times the things managed to latch on to me Simon bit them in the face or neck killing or at the very least, dislodging them.

As I fed potions, mostly to Kiyara and Gilana I caught glimpses of the practised and precise movements of my party members. It was quite the sight but even with that there were far more of the creatures than the three could handle and even I really had my work cut out for me.

The mess ended only when an oversized Gruver was hit in one eye by one of Kiyara’s throwing knives and then Gilana cut its throat as it reared back in pain. When the man-sized Gruver fell on its back dead, the last of the horde scattered into the bog and within a few moments the small clearing was finally silent.

I sank to my knees and felt the squishy dead bodies under me as I sat there panting. Franz opened his visor and began laughing heartily. Even Gilana was laughing but Kiyara looked just as tired as me.

“What about that!” Franz spoke happily. “Your first hunt and you got to, not only face, but survive a pack queen!” Franz laughed heartily and blood and gore fell off his armour as his body shook. I just sat there, covered in blood and filth, unable to even raise my arms. “Yeah… what an auspicious start to monster hunting…”