“So you’re a mage, huh.”

Hlaza lowered his head, for a reason that Jonathan didn’t understand. He read through the rest of his status and understood. In ogre culture, mages must be considered outcasts. Jonathan knew nothing about ogres but from the two he had met, it looked like physical prowess was considered above all else. The ogre that attacked them the night before was big enough to dwarf Jonathan and he was big enough to make Hlaza look small, so Hlaza was only natural for Hlaza to feel ashamed, all things considered. It must have been especially bad for him because of his status conditions; he grew slower than the other ogres and had a disadvantageous curse that effectively cut his strength in half.

Jonathan put his arm around Hlaza and smiled.

“So what? You and I are gonna show them whose boss, alright? You might have some stuff holding you back, that’s ok, so do I. If we can’t do it alone we’ll just have to get strong together. You ok with that?”

For a moment it seemed to Jonathan like Hlaza couldn’t understand him. His worries were for nothing because Hlaza nodded, making sure to keep his face away from Jonathan. He was sobbing. After a few moments of surprise, Jonathan hugged him.

“Whoa buddy, it’s ok. It’s ok. We’ll be fine.”

It was what his father used to tell him when he was scared, especially when he was younger. Even when Jonathan got older, his father would be able to calm him down with a simple phrase, when he was younger he used to think his father was magical. Maybe he was. Jonathan mused to himself. Stranger things have happened.

A few minutes later Hlaza wiped the tears from his eyes. If Jonathan was being honest with himself, he didn’t expect so much emotion from Hlaza; most media made him think of monsters as emotionless, they were always enemies you had to beat for experience so you could get to the next level so you could fight stronger ones to get stronger ad infinitum. Or at least until you beat the final boss. The idea that everything he fought so far had feelings, thoughts, cultures and dreams was shocking. It made everything he had to do to live feel that much worse.

“You ok?”

Hlaza grunted before nodding. Jonathan was starting to guess that these grunts weren’t random, what he was hearing was a language, although it was one he didn’t understand. Yet.

“Alright, let’s eat. We’ll talk about getting stronger after we put something in your stomach, alright?”

Hlaza grunted again. Jonathan took that to be a ‘yes’ and motioned for Hlaza to sit on a mossy stone. He took the rabbit off the fire. About one quarter of it was burnt. Jonathan took his short sword out to divide the rabbit, musing to himself about how in movies, the rabbit would have been perfectly cooked at the end of a conversation. Unless the movie was a comedy, where the rabbit would have been burnt beyond all recognition.

He took the hind leg and gave Hlaza the rest of the body. It was Hlaza’s kill after all. Jonathan felt bad about not having contributed to their food. The rabbit was extraordinarily tough and plain tasting but Jonathan didn’t mention it, every piece of meat he had eaten on Arda wasn’t selected as carefully for consumption as it was back on Earth.

After eating, Jonathan brought up Hlaza’s status up again, this time a bit more carefully.

“Have you seen your status before?”

Jonathan took Hlaza’s silence to be a ‘yes’.

“Alright, does that mean you know about your status conditions?”

Hlaza nodded. Jonathan felt relieved that he wasn’t the one to bring it up.

“So you know that your strength is tied to your magic? Good. That makes things simpler. Do you know how to use the [Paralyze] spell you have?”

Hlaza nodded. He pointed to the meat he was eating. Jonathan understood what he meant. He had used it to capture the rabbit. Jonathan remembered that when they were attacked by the ogre, he froze in place. He wondered if it was due to Hlaza mistiming the spell and hitting himself with it. He decided not to mention it.

“Good, good. Then that means we can get stronger easier. Is there a limit you have to using it?”

Jonathan regretted asking the question as soon as he asked it. He didn’t have the capacity to understand the answer that Hlaza was giving. Hlaza seemed to have experience using it and had put a lot of thought into using it.

“Wait, wait. Let’s start with the range. How far can you hit it from?”

Hlaza pointed to a tree about 5 meters away, with a face that clearly looked frustrated.

“Alright, is there a size limit? Can you use it on things bigger than you?”

Hlaza nodded, he took a stick and drew a circle on the forest floor. It was slightly larger than Jonathan but smaller than the big creature that beat up Hlaza for his food the day before. Jonathan smiled.

“Alright. Last question. How good are you at tracking?”

The forest was silent except for the trees. Birds chirped in the trees filling the otherwise silent forest with melodies. This rhythm was broken by a horned wolf-like creature. It had grey fur and walked using its hind legs with its front legs a foot from the floor.

“Now, do it.”

A light flashed and the horned wolf froze on the spot.

“Nice! Now let’s wait.”

Jonathan and Hlaza waited in bushes 3 meters away from the wolf with baited breath. 1, 2, 3, 4…Jonathan counted. He wanted to see how long it would take for the paralysis to wear off. When his count got to 237, the horned wolf started to move its arms.

“Let’s do this for real.”

Hlaza shot off another [Paralyze].

Jonathan burst out of the bush swinging his short sword and separated its head from its body.

“That was about four minutes, which should be good for us, even against groups. You ok?”

Hlaza nodded, he looked queasy.

“How many more can you cast before you need rest?”

Hlaza signalled ‘5’ using his hands. It looked like how many spells one could use in a day was linked to the Magical Mending stat. Hlaza had a stat of 14, and in total had 7 [Paralyze] spells that he could use per day. Jonathan wanted to allocate Hlaza’s stats after they levelled up because he needed a better idea of how magic worked. He assumed that the effectiveness of the spell would increase based on the Magic Power stat. He hoped he was right.

“Alright. I’ll take care of this wolf then we can do this three more times. Then we go back and rest. I don’t know how strong this wolf was but we should be able to level up a few times today.”

Jonathan cut out its teeth and its horn and put it them in a makeshift bag made out of the rabbit pelt. He then cut out a large portion of the wolf’s pelt before cutting of its left hind leg. He decided to keep its skull. It’s head was larger than Hlaza’s and could make a good helmet, albeit with a large hole its forehead.

“This is a bit of a waste…”

He used the fur he cut off the wolf to make a sling where he put the leg and the skull. He gave it to Hlaza.

“So do you know where we can get some more experience?”

This time there were two enemies. They were imps; these ones had a slight green coloration on their bellies. They were armed. One had a stone knife and the other had a sharpened stick about the length of Jonathans arm. Jonathan felt hesitant but the idea of having their weapons looked good to him.

“Ok, let’s go.”

Hlaza cast [Paralyze] at the imps. The imp holding the stone knife was paralyzed. The second one was on guard, by the time Hlaza cast the second [Paralyze],ot was able to dodge. It knew where they were.

“Damn.”

Jonathan had no choice but to fight it. Jonathan burst out of the bush they hid themselves and ran straight into the imp, short sword in hand. He swung for the neck, hoping to end the fight as soon as possible. It parried the sword and swiftly changed the direction of stick slightly to aim for Jonathans face. Jonathan dodged, it hit his shoulder instead. Jonathan felt the pain temporarily disable his arm as he kicked the imp away. The imp stumbled backwards before freezing in place. Hlaza ran forward. He looked exhausted.

Jonathan grabbed for the wound on his right shoulder. He didn’t know how deep it was but he hoped it wasn’t serious. He used his left hand grab the short sword and slit the throats’ of the imps. He gave Hlaza a thumbs up when suddenly a notification rang appeared in front of his eyes.

[Your mind is being corroded.]

[Skill: [Mantra of Madness] has temporarily stopped your mental erosion and eased your fatigue.]

[You mind will be under more stress later on.]

[You are now left with three uses before the effects of your mental corrosion affect you.]

“What. Why the hell did it activate now.”

Jonathan picked up the weapons.

“Let’s go back. I need to figure something out.”

The rest of the journey back to their camp was spent in silence. Jonathan was stuck in thought.

“Three uses. What the fuck. What the hell is going on?” Jonathan muttered to himself.

“Why now? There were no indications about the limits of the skill before. Then I get into one fight and suddenly I get notified that I have three uses left. I don’t even use it myself and then now it’s screwing me over. Why now? What’s different?”

They reached the campsite where Jonathan started a fire and left the wolf leg in the fire before hanging out the pelts to dry. His shoulder wound was still bleeding but wasn’t bleeding as much as his hand did a day ago. It didn’t inconvenience him too much and gave him hope that he would heal soon. He cut off some cloth from his shorts and asked Hlaza to tie it around in shoulder.

“I got the skill after I killed the old man. It activated then.” Jonathan hung his head. After a few minutes he continued.

“Then it activated by itself after I killed the crows and read my trait description. That still makes sense, I was pretty shaken up. Then again after I read what would happen if I left Hlaza behind. That made less sense, while it was pretty stressful I kind of saw it coming. Especially since it activated immediately. It usually activates after I had some time to digest what happened. Why was it different this time?”

Jonathan sighed. The last time he felt this confused, Eddie was giving him relationship advice. Jonathan missed Eddie. He got back to the problem at hand.

“Was it the [Usurper] quest? Damn. That quest has been more trouble than it’s been worth. What made it activate this time? It couldn’t have been me fighting or killing those monsters. I’ve fought before. No activation. Then it activates today. Why? What was different?”

Jonathan looked at Hlaza turning the leg over the fire.

“The method. What was different was the method. All the monsters were paralyzed before death. Why would that be a problem? I’m sure I’m not the only one who does it. I’m basically being forced into a ‘fair’ fight….”

Jonathan jumped up, surprising Hlaza.

That’s it! I was forced to protect Hlaza because he was a liability at the time I even got a reward for doing what they wanted. Now I’m being forced to avoid his help now that he can help me.

Jonathan remembered the notification he received after getting the quest.

[The quest will be transferred to the [Chosen] after you die.]

“To get the quest to the [Chosen], whoever is pulling the strings behind these notifications wants me dead.”

Another notification popped up.

[You are an unnecessary disturbance.]

The voice accompanying the text was filled with malice.

[At first you were amusing. Your existence is now a threat to our narrative. Thus you must die.]

[A quest has been offered to you!]