It didn’t take long for the plan to be revealed. The very next day the village chief made an announcement, or rather it was more of a challenge: should his son manage to improve the state of the village, he would be allowed to leave and head for the cities in the count’s domain whenever he wanted.

The idea had surprised nearly everyone, though not Aspion. He had been the one who had told Kraisten of the significance of improving a living area. With settlements being rare, especially on the frontier, every advancement was regarded as a service to the local noble, and required him to offer a boon as repayment. If Kraisten were to improve the village awakened area, the count had no choice but to invite him to the city and offer a reward.

Without a doubt, it was a good plan, though Aspion didn’t think that his friends would be as reckless to try it.

By noon the entire town had gathered in front of the chief’s mansion, waiting to witness the miracle. Kierra was also there.

“Wow, didn’t expect so many people to gather,” Kraisten said from the roof of the building.

“What did you expect?” Aspion laughed. “A level three settlement is practically a town.”

“I thought you told me that towns started at five.”

“Three is halfway there,” Aspion shrugged. “It’ll be more than most of the dumps in the area. From what my father says, most of them are twos. Improving will put us on the map.”

“That’s the plan.”

“How are you going to do it, anyway? Leveling up an area isn’t a joke. It takes more than just being a level five.”

“I know.” Kraisten smiled. “That’s why I have you.”

Area Awakening

You are in the land of DHERMA VILLAGE

Defeat the guardian to change the land’s destiny

This was the first time that Aspion had been in an area realm. It seemed very much different from he expected. It was much larger than an item’s awakening room, larger even than the realms in which the awakening shrine trials had taken place. Also, there was a lot more color in it, not only the muddy brown that seemed to compose everything in the real-world village.

“So, this is it from the inside?” Kraisten crossed his arms. “Looks better than the real thing.”

A large keep-like structure was beneath them. It was the realm’s representation of the chief’s mansion. While definitely larger, it was much less well kept. Goblin creatures were visible behind walls and edges, peeking at the duo with fear and aggression in their eyes.

“Cracks,” Aspion said, drawing his short sword. “We don’t need to fight them. If we defeat them, we’ll just mend your place.”

“Not fight them?” Kraisten drew his own sword. “Where’s the fun in that?”

The single fight improvement they were supposed to have quickly turned into a dozen, then into a hundred. As soon as the pair cut up a pack of goblins, Kraisten would lead them to another keep nearby where they would do the same. It wasn’t that fighting the goblins was easy—after their initial shock was gone, they had started fighting back with both viciousness and imagination. It was only due to their teamwork and the awakening markers that Aspion and Kraisten had managed to emerge victorious.

Days quickly turned to weeks. Aspion would use his knowledge to find something that could pass as edible in the realm, while Kraisten used his forging skills to use the iron at hand to make superior weapons. In a way it was almost as if they had already left the village and gone on an adventure, with one giant difference: in the awakened state, health never restored back. The wounds they would receive slowly piled up, making them weaker and weaker. By the time they had mended three quarters of the village buildings, Aspion’s health had been reduced to sixty percent. As for Kraisten, he had fallen to less than fifty.

“I think it’s time to stop,” Aspion said one evening as they sat round the campfire. “We can’t mend the entire village. Three quarters isn’t all bad.”

“It’s not all of it,” Kraisten replied lying on the ground, eyes closed. “We’ll finish the rest tomorrow.”

“You’ve been saying that for days. It doesn’t make it less false.” Aspion grumbled. “The goblins are getting smarter. If we keep wasting our health on them, we won’t have enough to challenge the guardian.”

“And you happen to know where the guardian is?”

“Yes,” Aspion lied. “Well, no, but that’s not the point. We have to focus on finding him and keeping our health high until we do. What’s the point in reaching him at twenty percent health?”

“We’ll be fine. You worry too much. We’ve got better weapons, good armor, plus the element of surprise. We’ll mop up the rest of the goblins, then find the guardian.”

To Aspion’s surprise, everything happened just as Kraisten said it would. The next few days were spent cleaning out the remaining keeps—something they had done with relative ease while only receiving one additional minor wound. Then, on the fourth day, once the last goblin had been reduced to smoke, the village guardian had emerged.

Aspion’s prediction had turned out to be correct—the guardian was an earth golem, though neither he nor Kraisten had expected to face anything this huge. The monster towered thirty feet above them, holding a club of petrified wood as big as the bell tower they’d hang out at in the real world. For once, even Kraisten had to admit his friend had been right—saving up more health would have been the wiser move. Then again wiser didn’t automatically mean better.

The fight had lasted over an hour. Combining their skills and attacks, the pair slowly chipped away at the golem’s force. Sometimes Kraisten would blind it, others Aspion would use his acrobatic attacks to distract the monster enough so that his friends would have an opening. Percent by percent they would toil on, until the final Kraisten made the final blow—a five percent critical that crushed the guardian to pieces, but also reconstructed him.

The next thing they knew, the two were back on top of the village chef’s mansion, only now it had grown larger, as had all the other buildings in the village.