Water splashed against him. Clay snapped his eyes open as an uneasy feeling of wet misery trickling down his face. He tried to wipe it off, only to be met with the realization that his hands were bound behind his back. He was tied to a chair in what he assumed was a medieval equivalent of an interrogation room.

The large square window certainly let in enough light for them to see him without removing the dark shadows of the room, but it kind of ruined the entire atmosphere when a guy walked past and waved. Unusually, his clothes were missing and had been replaced by a set of thick, loose-fitting ones that felt like he was wearing a potato sack. The guards huddled around him stared dilligently, the most senior looking of which went to the opposite end of the table and started talking, not taking his eyes off of Clay.

Last time, talking and acting based on assumptions only got him a sword in his chest, so he was going to be more patient this time, and make it clear that he didn't understand.

"I can't understand you."

The senior guard furrowed his salt and pepper brows, which were now slightly visible by peeking under the bullet shaped helmet he wore. He spoke more to Clay, but it didn't help. Clay repeated his one line again.

"I can't understand you."

More words, all met with another one, this one a little snarkier in tone than anticipated.

"I can't understand you."

The man slammed a sword down on the table, yelling angrily. He was aggressively pointing it at Clay now, stammering about as though he was a teakettle about to undergo a steam explosion. Now with a more frightened tone, Clay kept repeating himself.

"I can't understand you! I can't understand you!"

Even if they couldn't understand his words, if he was incapable of saying anything that potentially had meaning, then they would figure out he couldn't speak with them. The man waved for someone to join them. A young lady, with odd white hair and a sparkling blue robe came in and took the seat across from him. She had only sat down for a moment before getting back up, saying something, and walking towards him with her hand outstretched.

'Hey, what are you doing. No don't reach out to me like that, that's kind of creepy. Uhh.'

Her small hand smacked into his head without regard for delicacy, and started to turn warm. Clay could only scream for help internally. He felt like his position was abused for forceful head patting.

'This isn't so bad. She's not assaulting me. She isn't yelling. Just a single long head pat.'

Blue rings, with ever so slight white runic patterns, started to appear, swirling around her forearm. They got larger, spun faster, and slowly made their way down her arm as more took their place, seeming to just appear from her below her shoulder. After about thirty or so of these went into his head, she stopped.

'What the hell just happened? Magic? I don't feel any different.'

The guard that was seeming to threaten him before walked up with a clearly forced smile on his face. "Thank you Court Mage, I'm sure your magic will prove incredibly potent. You don't need to do anything else for us."

'Fear?'

"Don't bother me with something this trivial next time, ask one of the apprentices."

"Yes Court Mage."

The young lady let out an indignant sigh. It sounded like a small dog yawning, to Clay at least. The moment she was out of the room, the guard took his seat back while shifting gears back into a scowl.

"Alright. You can hear me now right twerp?"

"Yes sir."

"Sir? I don't hold knighthood."

He had responded to authority immediately and reactively. It didn't occur to him that sir wasn't just a pleasantry here.

"Yes... you just seemed like you did, sorry for jumping to conclusions."

The scowl deepened across the guards face, the salt and pepper brows nearly a reverse of the two part moustache on his lip.

"Clay Schwarz, who are you really?"

'What sort of question is that, you said my name in the front and everything. What do you want me to say? Sorry I'm really just a figment of your imagination? Hey my name's really Jeff, how do you do?'

"Uhh... Clay Schwarz?"

The guard dragged his hand across his face. "That was a stupid question. I should rephrase that. Who do you work for? What are you doing in our town? What spell is hiding your Status?"

"Status?"

He had blurted it out without thinking.

"The thing on your... No, you should know what the hell a Status is."

He had slipped up while his brain was connecting the dots.

'How do I play this off? Wait, do I even need to play this off?'

"I am not lying. I am Clay Schwarz. I appeared in this forest a few hours ago and was attacked by what some people who were probably bandits. They left me for dead and ran off into the forest. I didn't know spells existed until that lady used one. That was a spell right?"

The guard handwaved his entire speech.

"Your status says you are dead, and that you are a hero. Those two things should be impossible. Not to mention your numbers are clearly falsified."

"How could I prove that my Status is legitimate?"

"If it is true, your numbers are far too low! How the hell did you make it past childhood! What did your parents do with you? Feed you nothing but mana-less candy and pamper you to the point of muscle atrophy?! Have you ever worked a day in a field?!"

"No. I just showed up in the forest a few hours ago. I walked straight here after being stabbed. I guess you could say I was an educated child."

"Your Wisdom is a single digit!"

"I wasn't a very good educated child."

The guard stroked his chin, attempting to caress an invisible beard. The scowl slowly loosened.

"Alright, if you really are as weak as shit, then we can prove it by changing your Status on the fly! We are going to increase your Strength."

He nodded to the pair of guards that had been standing silently behind Clay. They nodded back, and shoved a bag over Clay's head.

"Wait! What the hell? Where are you taking me?"

"You'll know in a few minutes. Now shut up and walk."

They undid the rope on his hands, only to stand him up and tie it again. They dragged him along, aware only of bustling noises and the smell of manure.

**********************************************************************************

"Alright twerp, show me your strength. I'll assess you. Smack that training dummy with everything you got. If you dare hold back I'll drill a proper strike into your head!"

The moment he finished his words, the subordinate guards pulled the bag off his head and simultaneously cut the rope from his wrist.

"Here's a stick, don't even think about hitting me with it."

Clay took the stick, which was shaped roughly like a sword, and stared down the training dummy, which was shaped even more roughly like a person. It was a sack filled with straw on a stick, with a bucket upside down on the top. The rest of the yard he was in was just as shabby as expected. The walls around him were some sort of flimsy wood, the ground was covered in straw, and more of those anteater things walked past the gates, flippantly ignoring their surroundings. He turned his attention back to the impaled bag of straw.

'Well, here goes nothing.'

He brought the stick down at a diagonal angle, rather awkwardly curving towards the shoulder area, and almost threw himself to the ground with the rebound.

"What the hell are you doing. That's not how you use a damn sword!"

He repeated his swing again, this time going straight down onto the bucket, only for his swing to be stopped by the guard with his bare hand. The stick clinked harmlessly against his chainmail.

"You've got absolutely no power or technique behind you. Have ever even held a sword before?"

"I used one as a walking stick to get out of the forest, does that count?"

"Where did you even get that sword then?"

"They left it stabbed in my chest after they vanished."

The guard's face had now lost the scowl, and was replaced by a more apathetic annoyance. The gears in the guard's head had lost their steam, and he was probably now cursing his luck of having to deal with whoever left their unattended child in the fantasy world.

He let out a sigh. "Alright twerp, bring the sword to your side, set your foot there, put your hips into it, and swing with your whole body. If I don't show you how to do a proper cleave here and now I'm going to regret it when you get mauled by horned hares out in the forest."

He kept swinging in the new motion he was shown.

'1, 2, 3... 33, 34, 35.'

The burning pain enveloped his entire body. It wasn't the same itch as before, but now a sort of soreness, followed by what he could only describe as the worst muscle cramps he ever had. Then it started actually burning, and then it vanished. Clay was already on the ground. The guard grabbed his left hand, and stared down the lines.

[2 STR (Low)]

"Dear Goddess of Purity, who did this man piss off in the heavens above to get these low of stats at his age."

"You'll believe me now?"

"There are still a great many things suspect, but I have no need to deny you a weapon. Here's the sword you had with you."

He unclipped the extra sword from his hip.

"Wait why are you giving me a sword if there are things still suspect?"

"Why are you complaining? It's not like you can cause any trouble if your strength is that low. Take it as a blessing. More importantly, I was going to drag you to a healer, but you stopped bleeding a few minutes after you passed out. Lift up your shirt."

Clay obediently lifted his shirt. It was rather embarassing to show off his complete lack of muscle development. The crusted blood and stab wound however was more disturbing than he thought. It dug right into his sternum through his right side. Underneath the now brown blood marks, was a weird black thing, spreading over his skin.

"You'll need to get that looked at. Oh I suppose I should probably take you to the adventurer's guild for some sort of identification.

"Thank you... uhh..."

"John Smith, captain of the guard of Velona." The guard captain finally put on a smile.

"How do I know you aren't hiding your identity?"

Clay didn't mean anything by it, he just felt he could be snarky now that the mood had changed.

"I suppose since I took a look at yours, it'd only be a matter of fairness in return..."

John Smith took off one of his gloves, and somewhat rolled down his chainmail sleeve, barely revealing only the top line of his Status.

"How do I know this isn't fake too, huh?"

"No one can alter the Status, that's why we were questioning such an outrageous one as yours, Mr. Hero."

"I'm not too sure about the scale of this world... Could you show me the next line please?"

The guard's brows evenly scrunched down in thought.

"Yeah, sure."

"Thank you, I think that gives me enough of a scale to understand."

"No problem, and some parting advice, let me show you a proper sword technique." John picked up the stick from the ground, and swung it forward twice, seemingly to test its balance. He walked over to the training dummy and leaned backwards with the sword at his side.

"First, its important to deliver enough power with a swing to make it through any tough hides, protruding spines, or other nasty things a monster might have blocking your path to its vitals. In order to do this effectively, you need a heavy sword, or a lot of driving force." He swung outward, the wooden sword snapped in half over the wooden stake, and the end of it went flying into the distance. "The heavier your weapon, the less range you'll have to use it, and the stronger you need to be to handle it. A light weapon is usually seen as worthless, but if you can put your weight behind it, it will put up a good fight for you."

"Go fetch me my maul!"

One of the other guards ran off and back again within three minutes, he brought with him what looked like a large sledgehammer, except completely made of metal. Four spikes protruded off the front of it, in a much smaller surface area than the main mass of the hammer.

"This is what using a heavy weapon is like!"

He spun in a circle, that was it. The weapon seemed to stay completely still in the air as he spun around it in a circle. There was comically no point to using such a weapon. A spear would decimate him in seconds with it's superior reach and armor piercing power.

"This is an overhead strike!"

He threw it behind is back, rushed forward, and pulled himself backwards just to bring the head of his hammer in front of him.

*THUD*

It lifted John off the ground for a moment. Anything that he could manage to hit would be gone.

After a few more minutes of John trying to show off his exclusive heavy weapon techniques, Clay was directed into the town, and left to his own devices. John saw him off, trying to flex through his chainmail as mildly as possible. All Clay had now was the sword in his hands and the directions to a church that made half as much sense as his day so far.

**********************************************************************************

Eventually finding it by asking some of the pedestrians, he saw the building. The thing was surrounded by fields of some sort of orange grain, and the walls he had seen before collapsing were just on the horizon. It towered higher than the other buildings, and it's tall arched front was topped with a wooden statue of what appeared to be a heavily robed woman with flowing hair.

Inside were rows of pews, and a podium sitting in front of a large intricate statue, this one some sort of white stone, probably marble. A black haired man walked up to him. He was the cleanest person Clay had seen so far, with a crisply white suit, and it was a proper two piece suit too, though lacking the normal flairs. It was simply a shapely jacket and pants. His eyes were closed, or almost closed.

"Welcome my child, this is the church of the Goddess of Purity. Are you here to make a prayer? Perhaps to pay your family's tithe?"

'Tithe? They take cash from the people who come here? Is this like getting billed for a hospital visit? Shit, I've been bamboozled, I'm going to end up as a cripple or in a life of fantasy world slavery.'

"I was told to come here for healing, though I don't have any money..."

'Definitely fantasy world slavery.'

"That is no problem, the Goddess is the one who decides who to heal. Now, where are you injured?" The priest opened his eyes ever so slightly, scanning him up and down.

Clay lifted up his shirt again after a moment of hesitation.

"My goodness that is quite the injury. You must have an impressive amount of vitality to still be standing with that. Go sit on one of the beds to the left, a cleric will be with you shortly."

Clay walked into the room on the left side as the priest headed for the right. He was only there for a few seconds before shouting came from the main hall.

"Damned priest!"

"Brother Gregor! We are healers!"

The priest returned, a rough looking man who looked more like a mountain man than a cleric was behind him. The smell of alcohol was heavy. On closer inspection, what were supposed to be brown rags were fine silk robes, greatly discolored from their original yellows and oranges.

"Damned priest making me do all the work."

"Do you expect me to put a bandage on it or something, Brother Gregor?"

"No Father Nicholas. I expect you to pray to the goddess instead every once in a while!"

"You know I can't do that!"

"And I can't stand not being paid! Not even a paying customer in sight and he says we'll do it, over and over again. You don't have to do the work and you keep making me go without drinking money. If we keep doing charity, how am I supposed to live?"

Finally realizing someone was next to him, the gruff man turned his bearded face over with a slackened jaw.

"Hey how ya' doin'? I'm Brother Gregor, I'll be workin' with ya today. You got dysentery or somethin'?"

"I've got a sword wound."

"You look fine to me. Can you stand?"

"Brother Gregor, don't make the wounded stand up."

"He looks fine to me!"

"Show him your wound, please. He's always obstinate like this."

'Is this a lover's quarrel?'

Clay lifted up his shirt yet again, the black markings had started to spread further. The rest of the bloody mess was the same.

"That's quite a sting you've got there. Damn impressive you ain't fallin' over from that night's rot alone!"

"Night's rot?"

"That black stuff on yer skin. Drops your max hit points by damn near twenty percent!"

The priest's jaw nearly hit the floor while his eyes remained closed.

"Don't say nothin' about my speech, Nicholas. I can hear your nagging already. You lie back down. Let's hope the goddess is merciful with your healing."

As soon as Clay had set his head down onto the flat mattress, the man, Gregor, shot his hands out in front of him, directly over Clay.

"O great goddess, please cast your judgement on this man, and if his 'eart be pure, heal him of his ailments."

A golden light enveloped the man's hands, and Clay could feel warmth beginning to spread through his own body. It was gently, far unlike the painful burning of his stats increasing. It was pulling him back together. The sword wound vanished and some stiffness in his shoulder disappeared.

Realizing he forgot about the arrow wound, Clay rolled up his sleeve and made sure everything was fine.

"Why you looking at your shoulder?"

"I just remembered I'd been shot by an arrow too."

"Whatever, it's gone now. Lift up your shirt and check your Totals. If your HP is lower than expected it's the goddess's judgment. Don't take it out on me. If that night's rot is still there, that is the goddess's judgement and please don't take it out on me. I'm going back to sleep."

After giving his fine print speech, he sauntered out of the room, leaving Clay alone with Father Nicholas.

"Let yourself rest if you need to. I'm going to go talk some sense into Brother Gregor."

'I guess in a church it'd be called a brother's quarrel, or a family matter.'

With that, Clay was alone again. He lifted up his shirt to inspect the sword wound, finally clear of onlookers. He was whole again with no more hole in his chest. The black mark hadn't vanished, and now that it was stiched back together and the coagulated blood wiped off, it was clearly two black plants, intertwining, with a pair of black flowers on the ends, blooming out of where his wound was. He quickly looked at his wrist.

Apart from his MP refilling, it looked exactly the same, there was a slight difference from before though, on the bottom line.

Zero percent. He could't help but wonder if that was percentage learned, percentage mastey, or something else. Perhaps percent effectiveness? It didn't change the fact it was zero percent. It was the lowest number the system could give him, like a kindergarten teacher handing out stars for participation.

The tavern and adventurer's guild were one building, or rather, they built an adventurer's guild inside the tavern because that's the only place the adventurer's went in town, according to the staff he spoke to. They were tasked with registering adventurer's who would be working in the area so they wouldn't be mistaken as bandits, and so that if the adventurer's did commit a crime, they could be tracked.

The seemingly nice lady who he talked to only needed to copy down the social line of his Status to issue him a simple wooden plaque on a string with his name and a stamp of the guild's insignia. The lady, as though she worked in retail her entire life, her face didn't move. It was the same half smile the entire time.

The adventurer's in the tavern were an incredibly rowdy bunch, and once Clay had registered, he sat down at a table, only to witness the most spectacular display of disregard he had seen so far today. Two adventurer's started arguing, and eventually erupted into a barfight when third person decided to beat both of them with a chair. The receptionist dropped some iron bars down in front of her window with that same half smile on her face. He left as soon as he could make a break for the door.

Clay, feeling a bit drained now, watched the sun setting in the sky. He considered asking the guild receptionist where he could sleep, but on second thought, he went and asked John, the guard captain. He was directly told he could sleep in the stables with a weighty slap on the back. It smelled like shit.

He took several hours of laying on some fresh hay to adjust, simply staring at the wooden walls around him. After playing the days events back through his mind, he realized he hadn't eaten, but he didn't feel hungry. He just vowed that he would get some food tomorrow and finally fell asleep.