“Love the class selection. Couldn’t be any more typical, could it? Warrior, fighter, paladin, mage, thief, assassin, berserker, boring, boring, boring…”

Hadiin scrolled through the list of class options with increasing disinterest. They appeared before him, lifelike and half-human sized, vibrant and powerful representations of their type. He could see why the vast majority of people chose to play these in video games. But for some reason, none were appealing to him.

You’d think that, having played those classes in games since childhood, he’d be excited to do the same in real life. Yet, when he really thought about it, when he imagined actually going around swinging a sword to kill things and monsters biting him for real, always one healing potion away from death, the lifestyle lost some of its lustre.

Besides, he was actually in a new world, with real magic. Surely there was some cool, fun class to be had? As he got down into more exotic, and probably much less popular, options his interest perked up a bit.

“Glass canon devourer, phantom kraken, blue cryo slime…hmmm. Merchant.” He paused his scrolling. Merchant had caught his eye. Typically this was an NPC role. Here it could be an official class? Like, with skills and stuff? Did that mean that merchants could be super powerful here?

Hmm. Merchants probably wouldn’t be involved in much fighting, so it would be safer. More importantly, a merchant’s life revolved around one thing: making money. Adventurers were often poor. But a merchant?

In his world, starting your own business and trying to make something out of yourself was nearly impossible. Big corporations ruled the marketplace and had all the money. The whole world had long ago been settled and there was no place to start new and no new industries to build. But here, there could be many possibilities.

He smiled to himself as he pictured himself rising up to become a caravaner, then a shopkeeper with a pile of gold coins on his desk. Then his dreams took off and headed for the skies. He imagined himself growing wealthy, becoming a landlord, a Mogul Emperor, an Arabian Prince, a Spanish King, surrounded by mountains of shining gold.

A king…

Yes. Now there was an interesting idea. Could a merchant, with gold and influence, buy a crown here? Why not? Then he’d be the one with expensive yachts and dream houses and more and more!

His smile widened. He chose Merchant as his class.

[Class Accepted: Merchant]

[Skill (passive): Charismatic]

Charismatic? There was no info screen that explained the skill. He assumed that it would make him more appealing to other people. Maybe it would help in making deals or shopping? He’d have to test it out.

His class chosen, he considered what to do next.

He found himself standing on the edge of a very crude and small hamlet. There were no more than a half dozen wooden huts and pale, dirt roads. The huts were of gray, mud brick and straw roofs. Peasants wore homespun cotton shirts and pants, all a plain, natural colour. They were performing menial tasks such as feeding chickens in the street, sewing on a porch, and gardening next to one house. A party of hunters seemed to be returning from a successful foray with a deer over someone’s shoulders.

The air was fresh, the smell of plants and woodsmoke on the breeze. And dung. Hadiin definitely smelled poo of various kinds. Lots of animals here and likely no plumbing in those huts. This would be his first slap in the face with reality then. Lovely.

Mental note: find a city or something with actual plumbing. If plumbing does not exist here, invent it—fast.

Hadiin stepped forward and felt something in his pocket. That was odd because he didn’t remember having had anything in them at home. Even his phone was sitting on the coffee table in an entirely different world right now. Reaching into his pants, he pulled out five gold coins.

Now that was interesting. Was this some kind of perk from choosing his class? Or a gift from the goddess? Either way—great!

Nodding to himself, he pocketed the money and strode into the hamlet. Something neat on the distant horizon, barely visible past distant treetops, caught his eye. With a bit of excitement, he jogged over to the nearest house and found a ladder which he used to get himself up onto someone’s roof. It was not a simple endeavour and he found himself huffing and puffing along the way. He was not in great physical condition. But, at last, he gained the rooftop and stood up.

Far, far away, over hills and forest, he could just make out the spires of a glorious fantasy castle reaching up over the trees.

He grinned and reached out as if he could grab the throne from here. “You will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine.”

Then the straw roof gave out and he tumbled through the air into the house below. He crashed into something and there was heat and smoke. Someone screamed.

Well, he’d put a huge hole in the roof. And destroyed a stove. And set some things on fire. And nearly broken a poor woman’s arm. The woman’s husband was…um…rather upset, to put it mildly. Especially about that last part. Hadiin had to fork over half his gold to pacify the couple, after which he got the heck out of there.

Head down and heading down the only street in the hamlet, he silently cursed with all his might, flying into a helpless rage. One stupid mistake and he’d just lost half of his investment fund. Unfair, bloody, stupid…

He stopped himself and tried to rein in his anger. Taking deep breaths, he regained control of himself. “Shouldn’t have climbed up onto someone else’s roof, I suppose. Especially one made of really poor and old thatch.”

Fighting to keep his temper down and not be too negative about things, he took another deep breath and forced himself to be positive. As a merchant, that was going to be his strength and his armour: an outlook that sought out silver linings and the profit in any situation. Yes, he’d lost a lot of money for no good reason, that was true. But better to have screwed up and learned this valuable lesson now before he’d amassed—and lost—even more money.

He took a deep breath, feeling somewhat calmer. Now, how to go about getting rich?

Killing monsters for parts he could sell was out of the question. He had no weapon, no magic, and no armour. That was a recipe for a quick death.

He walked about the tiny hamlet and studied everything he saw. A homely old woman cooked over an outdoor stove. A middle-aged man stretched hides over wooden frames: probably a skinner and leatherworker. Looking through an open doorway, he saw a motherly woman in one of the houses making bandages.

It reminded him of the professions in games. In games, these were just side hustles done to waste time, ways for developers to distract players instead of creating actual game content. But here, these were real jobs.

Was he going to have to learn a profession? Surely not. After all, he was officially a merchant. So he should be…buying and selling stuff? He looked around but couldn’t find any vendors in the hamlet. The place was probably too small for that sort of thing. The people here looked like they were subsistence living at best.

Also, buying and selling right now could be tricky. He didn’t know the value of goods yet. It would be very risky to invest his little coin in anything without being able to calculate a return.

To his embarrassment, he realized that he did, in fact, have the same problem that he’d had back home: he had no idea how to start his own business. He might be in a new world and, theoretically, there might be more opportunities here, but he didn’t know where to get goods or where to sell them or how anything worked. He was completely lost. And that made him feel a bit stupid, even chagrined.

Hadiin looked over at the hunters, who were butchering their kill. Well, he had no idea how to hunt. He could pay them to hunt for him, but he had no idea how to properly skin and butcher an animal. And if he did skin it, he wasn’t sure how to do something with the skin to preserve it so that it could be made into leather. He could pay the leatherworker to do that for him as well, but to what end?

He thought about the old woman cooking outside her home. He could cook, somewhat. Maybe he could buy some meat and produce some kind of dish. But could anyone here even afford to pay for his food?

There was that woman making bandages. But when he went back and glanced through her door again, he saw two large baskets of what looked like some kind of cotton and three daughters who were very hard at work weaving that cotton into thread and yarn that could be used to make the bandages. It seemed to be a very labour-intensive process and that many skills were involved. Should he ask to learn from them? Try to buy some of the bandages in hopes that he could sell them for a profit? What if their quality was not good?

In light of the situation, Hadiin was forced to take a good, realistic look at himself. He didn’t, in fact, seem to have many useful skills. Growing up in the modern world, he couldn’t actually do much when it came to real work. He was in poor athletic condition because he’d never exercised or played sports, as either a child or an adult. All he had was two gold and fifty silvers and a dream.

An ugly, humiliating feeling sank over him.

He needed help.

As he thought about his situation, Hadiin reached up and twirled his long, luxurious, handlebar moustache, one that turned up at the ends in delightfully expressive curls. Because, of course, he had a twirl-able moustache; many great figures did: Snidely Whiplash, Captain Hook, Cardinal Richelieu. Ok, to be fair, most of these were great villains. Not that he considered himself a dastardly villain, by any means. But damn, did those men have style!

It occurred to him that games have quests. Was it possible that someone in town needed help with something? Could he get paid for that? Or, at least, get some food? Because he hadn’t eaten in a while and he was getting hungry and he preferred finding a way to earn new money rather than dip into his savings, now a meagre two gold and fifty silver.

He found a farmer who offered Hadiin two silvers for killing some water slimes that had appeared in the town well. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to kill slimes: pass.

The old woman cooking outdoors offered three silvers to clean her garden of weeds, sweep her house and maybe do whatever other chores she could think of. It wasn’t exactly glorious work, but it was money, so he jumped at it and had it all done in less than an hour. She even gave him a hunk of bread to go with the silver.

A woman offered ten silver for all the pink-capped mushrooms that he could find in the forest. Oh, just one thing: he had to be on the lookout for goblins, which had recently appeared in the area. Pass on that one, too. Though he was curious to see what real goblins looked like.

Speaking of goblins, one desperate, heartbroken farmer had been attacked by the monsters only the other day. He was offering all that he had—eighty-seven silver—for sixteen goblin heads and the return of his wife, whom the little monsters had kidnapped.

Hadiin frowned. Well, the first few quests were for so little money they weren’t worth his time and the last was patently absurd. Who could possibly kill sixteen goblins? Well, maybe if he’d taken one of the warrior classes, and had a weapon, he could have done it. Unfortunately…

Hadiin apologized to the farmer, saying he simply didn’t have the weapons or abilities to defeat so many goblins and departed, leaving the poor man standing alone and weeping at the thought of his missing wife.

Standing on the edge of the hamlet, Hadiin once again twirled his mustache in thought.

Killing things, and even entering the forest, was out of the question for him, at least while solo. He needed help. He wondered if there were any adventurers in the area. Perhaps he could hire them for the goblin quest?

Well, according to the locals, adventurers never, ever came to these parts. They were too remote; this was the very fringes of human settlement on this continent, apparently. What few adventurers were in the region were busy with one of the big dungeons next to the city of Avaeris, up north.

Oh! Actually, there was one exception, one man pointed out. A young woman had shown up the other day, quite suddenly, much like Hadiin had. And she’d said that she was determined to be an adventurer.

Hearing this, Hadiin’s spirits picked up. Was this the woman that the goddess had mentioned dropping off? Someone else from his world? Excited, he followed directions that took him into the edge of the forest, where he’d been told the young woman had gone earlier. He didn’t go far, having no desire to battle monsters or goblins with his bare hands. He kept the hamlet well within view.

A while later, an attractive woman in her twenties stalked out of the forest, making for the hamlet. She walked with confidence, her long, crimson hair flowing behind her. She wore a white t-shirt and jeans. A basket of pink and white mushrooms was clutched under one arm. To his surprise, she didn’t look armed. He wondered why she seemed to have no fear of being in the forest, apparently alone.

Seeing that she was going to pass by and not even notice him, he hustled towards her. “Hey there!” he called out.

She slowed down and then stopped in surprise at the sight of him. She was of average height or a little less, with quite an hourglass figure and brown eyes. She wouldn’t be called beautiful by most, but perhaps cute would suit her, though she was a little on the plain side. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers and that body was nothing to turn your nose up at.

“Hi,” he greeted her, coming to stand near her. They were at the edge of the forest. “Weird question. You are not from this world, are you?”

“And…I take it you’re not either.” She eyed him up and down. “I guess the clothes gave me away, huh?”

He smiled, feeling relieved and excited to have encountered someone from his world. He pointed at her shapely legs. “I doubt they have jeans in this world. Also,” he pointed at her shirt, which was stretched over very large breasts, “they probably don’t emblazon shirts with famous web serials on them here. Ones from Earth, anyway.”

She glanced down at herself. Her shirt read TWI in black, block letters. Below was a drawing of a redheaded girl wearing a pirate hat. “Oh, yeah. Probably not.”

“So, did a beautiful, blue woman bring you here too?”

“Yeah. We were members of the same guild in a fantasy game. We were friends, got to chatting. She told me she was impressed by how hardcore I was when it came to the game. When she offered to bring me to a world where I could do real magic and other stuff. I jumped at it.”

“I was working at Amaz-Ex until a few hours ago. Quit my job and logged into World of Fantasy. Had a bit of a breakdown. She came and talked to me. Same thing: she offered to bring me here and I accepted.”

“You choose a class?”

“Merchant.”

She frowned. “Seriously? Why? You could have picked anything and that’s what you went with? It’s so boring. I mean, how’s it any different than being some money grubber from back home?”

He felt a tad embarrassed. “I don’t know. Ok, maybe picking the class had been an emotional decision. I’d just quit my job, I was angry about money, jealous of rich people. I could have taken a bit longer to evaluate other options.”

“Yeah. Seriously.”

“Still, maybe being a merchant in this world is different. This system they have gives you magic and skills and stuff, right?”

“Yep. I got my first spell when I chose my class.”

“Ah. You’re a mage. That’s why you’re walking around the forest without any weapons.”

She looked smug. “Sorceress, actually.” With a flick of her wrist, one hand enveloped in orange flames.

“That’s so cool!” he enthused, beyond impressed at seeing magic for the first time.

“What about you?”

“Nothing yet. Some passive called Charisma?” He gave her a questioning look but she only shook her head, apparently not knowing what it was any more than he did. “I’m hoping it gives me an advantage in dealing with people. Maybe I get discounts or make bigger profits or something.”

“Huh. Maybe.” She didn’t seem impressed.

“So, no pressure but would you like to team up?”

Uncertainty clouded her eyes. “Uh…”

He saw her expression and felt embarrassed by her hesitation. He knew it was silly, having just left billions of people from his world behind, but now that he’d found one of those people here, he didn’t want to lose her. Before she could think of a reason to refuse him, he rushed on. “Say, just to double-check, are you gathering those mushrooms for someone in town?”

“Yeah, why?”

“How much did they offer to pay you?”

“Eight silver for a basket.”

He smiled. “I was offered ten.”

“Seriously?” She looked miffed.

“Anyone else offer you any jobs?”

“A silver to kill some slimes. But I have fire magic, which is no good against water slimes, apparently.”

“Offered me two silver. How about the farmer whose wife was kidnapped?”

She took a breath. “Fifty. Which would be great but I don’t know if I could do that on my own. I don’t think I’m strong enough yet.” She eyed him with suspicion. “How much did you get offered?”

He grinned. “Eighty-seven.”

“What? That ass was holding out on me? And with his wife at stake?” She growled. Flames popped up on her hand again. “Why do you get more money from people than I do?” She glared at him.

“Because I am a merchant and relationships are the grease that allows the wheels to spin. Apparently, this [Charisma] skill does have an effect. What a delightful turnout.” He puffed up a bit at that.

She crossed her arms, indignant, then gave him a contemplative and somewhat greedy look. “So you want to team up? Split the higher reward you’re being offered? A sorceress is a pretty badass class.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not familiar with the class. Like a wizard, right?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. Wizards are male witches and have a system of magic based on emotion and nature and ritual. I don’t think wizards are very common here. I heard that most magic users are mages. Mages memorize spells from books. They can cast a lot of different spells, giving them huge versatility, more than any other class, but they can only cast so many spells per day, or each spell so many times, before needing to rest. They don’t have large, personal mana wells and many of their spells have a kind of countdown.”

“Rest? As in sleep?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Eight hours of sleep to get all their magic back. Sorcerers have huge innate mana wells. We can’t cast as many different spells as wizards, but many of our basic spells are more powerful. And our magic regenerates constantly.”

“Interesting.”

“Also, I chose a speciality.”

“What’s that?”

“Sorcerers can specialize and boost their powers from making pacts with demons or gods or bonding with legendary artifacts. ”

“That sounds…dangerous. And you?”

She smiled knowingly. “Dragon ancestry.”

“Oh. That sounds exciting. Wait. That means…?”

She held herself straighter, with pride. “It means I’m no longer fully human. I’m now part red dragon. So while wizards are paper bags who die at the drop of a leaf in the forest, I’m tougher. And I have an affinity for fire magic.”

She was no longer human? Was that even possible? What was he thinking? He’d just been transported to another world. And there was magic here. Anything was possible. “Part dragon. That’s fantastic. Congratulations.”

“Thanks!” She seemed very excited by that. “I love dragons. Now, if I level up enough, I might even take on more dragon characteristics. Like this, see?” She pulled her hair aside and showed him her neck. There were small, very faint, pink scales up the sides and back of her skin.

He wondered if he should be weirded out by that, but didn’t feel any different about her despite learning this. “Very cool. Awesome. So, if you’re tougher, you can deal damage and tank. I’ll cheer you on from a safe place in your rear.”

Uncertainty crossed her face. “You mean behind me, right?”

“Depends on the situation. I do detect hints of a fine booty on you.” He gave her his most winning smile.

She became flustered, perhaps conflicted between blushing and being offended. “I—you… Uh, whatever.” She shook her head and hurried on. “Fine, let’s make a party. For now.” She hefted the basket. “I just need to drop these off. Then we should go hunting.”

“For what?”

“I spotted a bunch of cry slimes in the forest. My fire spell might be weak to water, but I want to see how it fares against ice. Maybe I can melt the slimes to death or something. And I want to gain levels.”

“Sure. Sounds fine to me. I’ll, um, try to find some way to be helpful.”

“You can start by telling the woman paying me for these that you helped and she should give us the rate she offered you.”

He smiled. “Can do.”

They turned in the mushrooms and did, indeed, get paid the higher rate.

Afterwards, feeling great about this turn of events, Hadiin graciously waved towards the forest. “Ladies first, my dear.”

“‘k.” She moved in the direction of the quest.

“Your name, by the way?” he asked, feeling stupid for not having asked earlier.

“Marian.”

“Marian, it is indeed a pleasure. Especially from this angle.”

She stopped and spun around, frowning, “Are you gonna—“

He neatly stepped to the side and put an arm around her shoulders. “This way, this way, my dear Marian,” he said, pulling her along. “Those slimes won’t just kill themselves.”

She closed her mouth and grudgingly took the lead again.

Hadiin continued to admire her healthy backside while they trudged through the forest.

They came to a small clearing on the edge of a creek.

A pre-teen boy was backed up against a tree, fear on his soft features, fending off several cryo slimes with a bucket. “Back off! Go away!” he shouted, to no avail. Slimes probably weren’t intelligent creatures, just mindlessly attacking whatever came close. So pleading was likely useless.

Hadiin bowed like a gentleman and waved towards the spectacle. “You’re on, dear Marian. Let’s see what a sorceress can do.”

She flashed him uncertain eyes, perhaps wondering if he was mocking or sexually harassing her, then nodded and assumed a determined stance. Holding her hands out in front of her, she sent a fan of flames flying at the slimes.

Steam poured off the blue and white bodies of the monsters. A second, longer burst of flames caused the smaller cryo slimes to melt into a puddle. As hoped, this seemed to take the life out of them. That left two larger ones. These turned towards Marian and started oozing closer, thankfully leaving the boy alone.

She another fan of flames forward. The cryo slimes bubbled and burst and melted to the ground.

The boy sighed with relief and came forward, mouth running a mile-a-minute. “Thank you! I was in real trouble there. I just came to fill up this bucket with stones from the creek. I didn’t think there’d be monsters here. My dad must be so worried about me. I’d better get home, quick!” He waved and ran off towards the village.

Marian turned to Hadiin with a triumphant expression, hands on her hips. “How’d you like that, huh?”

“Very good.” Hadiin nodded without paying too much attention to her. He was focused on the puddles of slime. He knelt beside one. There was a small crystal of some kind in the goo. He picked it up. In fantasy lore from his world, slimes sometimes manifested around cores. Was the same true here? If the cores were left alone, would they eventually reconstitute bodies?

Then there was the slime. Touching it, he was very surprised to learn that it was still cold to the touch.

Marian, probably feeling unappreciated for her efforts, frowned, but said nothing for a moment. Then she scoffed at the slime. “It’s worthless. Nobody in the village will buy it.”

Hadiin wasn’t so sure. “Surely nothing is worthless, is it? It seems a waste to leave all of this behind. Surely there must be some use for it.”

“It’s just goo,” she insisted, arms crossing again, definitely annoyed at him for not praising her firepower earlier. “Stop being gross and leave it alone.”

Hadiin dipped a finger in the slime and tasted it.

“Ew!” Marian swiftly turned away. “What are you doing?”

“How odd. It’s cold.”

“They were cryo slimes,” she said as if explaining to an idiot.

“Isn’t it odd that it would remain cold like this after the monster was killed? And it doesn’t really have much flavour, but there is a mild creaminess to it.” He tasted another sample.

She gagged. “Seriously, that’s gross. Please stop doing that or I’ll have to partner up with someone else.”

“Really? If that’s how you feel, by all means. All the money I make off of this I’ll just keep for myself.”

She did a double-take. “Huh? You’re going to make money off cryo slime? How?”

“My cute, adorable, wonderfully powerful Marian,” he began. “And yes, I’m fully aware of how easily you took down all those monsters all by yourself; it was very impressive,” he flattered.

She looked mollified at that, and curious.

He stood and put an arm around her shoulders. “I am a merchant with golden dreams. And here,” he waved towards the puddles of slime, “laying on this forest floor, discarded by everyone else, I alone see an opportunity. In fact, I see several. And they are of the profitable variety.”