Roa woke up on a straw-stuffed bed. Looking around, it looked like he was in a small wooden cot. On one side, was a kitchen that didn’t seem to fit in, taking up half the cot. On the other side, was a table with many vials, and three chairs. As he got off the bed, his feet touched a rug made of horse skin before he heard a tiny squeak behind him.

Turning around, it was the small rat that had hid in his pocket during the abyss. How it even got into his pants pocket without him noticing, he did not know. Roa should’ve at least felt extra weight on that leg.

The small rat lept off the bed pole it was standing on, and jumped on Roa’s shoulders. Roa could feel the small rat’s whiskers nuzzling his cheeks.

“What is it, do you want to stay with me?”

The small rat’s head bobbed up and down.

“Well, I’ll tell you right now that I won’t care for you, and also I’m permanently stuck as a level 1.”

The small rat just kept staring at Roa.

“...Fine. What’s your name?”

Hopping off, the small rat quickly brought back a flower and a plate.

It first nudged at the flower.

“Flower.”

It nudged again.

“F-.”

It squeaked before Roa could finish, then nudged the plate.

“Plate.”

It nudged it again.

“Pl-.”

Once again, it squeaked before Roa could finish, but kept on nudging the plate.

“-ate?”

The small rat put the flower of the plate.

“...Fate.”

Content, Fate scurried into Roa’s right pants pocket. Roa still couldn’t understand how he didn’t feel Fate inside his pockets at all.

“Haha, what a name. This world is playing tricks on me again. Why can’t I understand what Fate is saying? My stat card says I should be able to understand all languages.”

He shook his head. A lot of the things in this new world didn’t make sense.

Walking over to the table, Roa noticed that the vials were-

“Plastic.”

Roa’s quick body turn caused some of the vials, some of which had liquid in them, to fall to the ground. When the vials hit the ground, they merely deformed, unbreaking.

The voice which startled Roa came from a withered old man who had just entered through the doorway protruding from the right of the kitchen The old man was barely taller than the table, which Roa estimated to be able one and a half meters. His skin was fairly tanned, similar to those who were always at the beach in Roa’s home world. Aside from the two horns protruding near the ears, everything else was humanlike.

The old man walked over to the table, picked up the vials that fell on the floor, and inspected them.

“Interesting thing, isn’t it? It’s a recent discovery of mine. It’s malleable and durable. I call it plastic.”

“If you put something too hot in it, it’ll deform.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Just a hunch.”

Behind the table, Roa also noticed a brewery filled with black liquid inside its tubing, and a tub of slightly transparent, white beads.

“Say, who are you anyway?”

“Me? Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?”

“...I’m Roa.”

“Roa, is it? I’m Darvin, a devil.”

When Roa heard the word devil come out of Darvin’s mouth, he jumped back. Humans were currently at war with the devils, and right in front of him was one of them. A devil capturing a human only spoke of bad things for the human.

Roa reached for his steel dagger, but when he grasped air he remembered he dropped it and left it in Gresknov. Instead, he balled his hands into fists, and tried to imitate an MMA fighter.

The old man only chuckled.

“There’s no need to be tense. If I really wanted to hurt you, I would’ve strapped you to the bed and tested my potions on you.”

“...”

“Oh don’t be like that. You’re only alive because I saved you when you fell out of the sky.”

“...Thanks.”

“Now that’s better. Come, let’s eat, I bet you’re hungry after sleeping for two days.”

Darvin and Roa arrived at a wooden longhouse. Two chimneys were continuously puffing out smoke. As soon as they walked in, Roa could smell a tasty aroma.

The devils that were already inside looked up and saw Roa. They stared for a moment, then resumed eating.

“I thought devils and humans were at war.”

“They are, but we are a peaceful village. We have no care for what comes in, and what goes out, as long as they earn their stay.”

The two walked over to where the food was being served.

“Hello Darvin.”

“Oh, hello there Emelia. This fellow here is a new guest of mine.”

“A human, how interesting. Pleased to meet you, I’m Emelia.”

“I’m Roa.”

Roa’s stomach growled.

“Well Roa, looks like your stomach just took over the talking. We have a nice lunch today: dragon bone soup with dragon meat and toun rice.”

Emelia took out a polished plate and piled food on top of it. It soon looked like an ant hill.

“That’s enough, right?”

“Uh… yea, that’s enough.”

“How about a little more? Auntie won’t tell.”

“No, it’s fine!.”

Emelia took out another plate and filled it up just the same. Darvin thanked Emelia for both his and Roa’s food. The two walked around a bit and found a seat. Sitting down, they began to eat and chat.

“So Roa, how did you fall from the sky in the first place?”

“I… got teleported out of a dungeon.”

“Oh, a strong one are you. That explains why a dragon fell from the ground with you.”

“I’m not actually strong at all. Nevermind that, but is what I’m eating from that same dragon?”

“It sure is! When the dragon fell from the ground, it went SPLAT, and died.”

“How did I not die?”

“Well Roa, you were quite lucky. I was out picking up new ingredients, when I saw you and a dragon falling down. I propelled air under you as you fell, creating a cushioning for what it was going to be an inevitable demise.”

“Say, are you going to eat the rest of that?”

Darvin’s mountain of food had disappeared. Roa’s mountain, on the other hand, had barely diminished at all.

“Err… I’m kind of full and all…”

“No worries, I heard that humans didn’t eat that much anyway. I guess Emelia wanted to err on the safe side instead of giving you too little to eat. If you don’t mind, I’ll gladly take the rest of it.”

“Of course, take your fill. You saved me, so it’s the least I could do.”

“Haha, at least you have some manners.”

Darvin and Roa returned to the cot and sat at the table filled with vials.

“As I said before, anyone who wants to stay in this village must earn their keep. The amount of work you must do is equal to how much manpower you are able to offer to the village. Therefore, I would like to see your stat card.”

Roa hesitantly gave his stat card to Darvin. Darvin looked at the stat card, then had a sudden moment of realization.

“Ah, I forgot human stat technology still isn’t there yet.”

From a drawer near the bed, he took out a smaller version of the stat displayer from the castle and inserted Roa’s stat card.

###Roa XeltAge:16Gender:MaleLevel:###Class:###-Health:100/100######Strength:10###10Agility:11Resistance:10Magic:100###10-###

Wind, ###, Earth, Water, ###, Light, Dark, Void

Skills

[Unique] ###

###

###

Access to all elemental affinities.

[Unique] Power of Knowledge

When absorbing points of an object, gain attributes similar to the object.

Able to appraise all objects

###

###

Increased stat growth.

Able to understand all languages.

Titles

World Traveler

The serene aura that Darvin normally held had disappeared in a flash, replaced by a malicious one.

“You think this is a joke?”

“Huh?!”

“There’s no way you could even explore a dungeon with such low stats! And what’s with the static everywhere!”

The killing intent emitted from Darvin was immense. Roa gulped, and tried to speak as calmly as possible.

“T-the d-dungeon was m-mostly b-by my c-comrades. I m-mostly sat back and watched. And I was g-going to get a special stat c-card f-from a small test tubeofredliquid!” Roa rushed out the last words.

Roa heaved a sigh of relief as the menacing aura faded away.

“A test tube of red liquid huh? That’s quite an interesting stat card type you have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m assuming said red liquid is quite rare because it was being housed in a test tube. The metal that makes up the so-called red liquid is Luplacium, only found in remote places. It normally looks like a small cyan square.”

Avoiding Fate, Roa pulled out the cyan plate he had discovered in Gresknov.

“Oh, you mean this?”

“...”

Darvin snatched the cyan plate out of Roa’s hand, and carefully inspected it.

“You lucky son of a… this is the biggest piece of Luplacium I’ve seen in my life.”

“That’s big? It’s barely the size of my fingernail.”

“Why, it is indeed big. Luplacium is usually found the size of a grain of sand.”

Darvin accidentally turned a tiny corner of the cyan plate into powder.

“Oops. You don’t mind if I take a bit of it right?”

“Of course not, but I would like it if you could make me a stat card.”

“No worries, in fact I’m actually the stat card maker in this village. I’ll have a new stat card ready for you in two days.”

Pulling out an empty plastic vial, Darvin tapped the plate on the tip of the vial to procure the powder.

“Here’s your Luplacium back.”

Roa watched as Darvin took a few herbs from various locations, to create a green mixture in the vial. Darvin sealed the vial, and vigorously shook it like a cocktail. Inside the vial, the green had turned red.

“Darvin, you said this Luplacium was rare right?”

“Oh yes, quite rare indeed.”

“Does that mean I can sell it for a lot?”

“Oh, if only. Luplacium is used only for this very specific type of stat card. Since the amount of people who have this stat card is less than the amount of Luplacium in the world, there aren’t many people who are willing to pay much for it.”

---

The next day, Roa was called by Darvin as he woke up.

“I know you just woke up, but I need you to do a few things for me. I’m busy working on your stat card, so I’ll need you to do my daily duty. I need you to gather a few red herbs and blue herbs a few hundred meters away. Don’t worry, they’re really easy to spot.”

Red and blue herbs sounded familiar to Roa.

“Also, for your weight in the village, bring back at least fifty red and blue herbs. Even with your stats, I’m sure picking herbs shouldn't be a difficult task.”

“Yessir.”

Fate, who was sleeping next to Roa, leapt into his usual spot in Roa’s right pants pocket as Roa left to fulfill his duties. At the back entrance, Roa grabbed a few small sacks to hold all the herbs.

Surprisingly, just like Darvin said, the red and blue herbs were easy to spot against a mass of green. Upon further inspection, Roa could see slight discrepancies between different herbs. Some were darker, some were brighter, while others grew too tall. He picked the ones that were the closest to the one’s he saw in Sil’s farm.

Nearby, there were a couple of rabbits hopping around. While Roa was picking herbs, Fate decided to have some fun and toy with the rabbits. Fate was able to bleed two rabbits to death with continuous bites before Roa had finished filling a small sack he had brought along.

“Well Fate, these are your own spoils. We can cook them up and you can eat every single peace.”

“Squeak!”

Fate opened his mouth like he was yawning, and crawled into his usual pocket. Roa picked up the two rabbits and threw it into a sack different from the one with the herbs.

Roa himself tried to catch a few rabbits, but they all scurried away at a faster pace than he could chase.

“Damn, if only I still had my dagger.”

Roa ran around for a few hours trying to catch a rabbit, but to no avail. No matter how hard he tried, the rabbits were always able to outrun him in the end.

“Damn.”

He knew that there was no chance at all for him to catch one of the rabbits, and searched around to find other prey.

Not far away from the rabbits, was a forest. Roa had approached the outskirts of the forest, and discovered chickens. To be exact, they looked like chickens, only with beaks that were the same size as their body.

One of the weird birds noticed his presence and charged at him beak-first.

For the first time since he had come to this new world, Roa genuinely laughed. The chicken-like existence was slower than the sun in the sky.

The laughing immediately went away when the bird got close and moved its head extremely quickly towards Roa. The attack missed him by a few millimeters and the beak pierced the ground. The bird struggled to remove its beak from the ground.

Roa only laughed even harder, making him forget the death he had almost encountered. Fortunately, the neck was easy to twist, which Roa learned from watching his grandfather kill chickens.

He crammed the weird creature into another sack, with its beak jutting out of the opening. Roa believed that the chicken would satisfy the requirements set by Darvin.

Out of nowhere, Roa heard a disgruntled voice before he felt something slide into his sides.

“I’m not handing over Tasmania village to you.”