Two weeks had past since their training at Baldor’s Loft began in earnest, a regimen of combat, skill grinding, and team building. The trio could now efficiently, and with familiar ease, clear out the nearby gecko pond, defeating the Gecko King by lunch. Although, they found that the dinosaur only spawned during the three day rainy season.

At some point, the routine had become almost enjoyable. It gave Eugene something to look forward to, to plan for another day. It was a simple thing, but somehow important.

Training consisted of almost anything Edge could think up. They crawled along on their stomachs through the tall grass to raise their hide skills. Thankfully, laundry was a timed function of the inventory, and not a real chore. During his alone time, Edge did exercises to build up his strength, and threw stones at targets. Otherwise, he competed in foot races with the dashing Daphne. The races weren’t about winning, a good thing too, because he always lost. Sakura joined them a few times; he tried to encourage her to raise her speed, but she disliked losing to Daphne even more than he did for some reason.

Daphne sang constantly, like a broken record, until even she was getting tired of hearing herself. On the bright side, she was relieved when the use of her skinning knife was simply a matter of stabbing a corpse flag, and not any actual dead bodies. Her inventory was piling up with large stacks of [Gecko Hide]. And though Baldor wouldn’t buy them, and so far they had found no way to use them, it was still fulfilling for her to contribute to the group. It didn’t hurt that Sakura looked entirely jealous every time Daphne brought out her skinning knife.

Sakura spent her personal training time studying books she had purchased from Baldor. The innkeeper had a quaint bookshelf in a corner by the fireplace that he described as a library. Though most of Baldor’s books were trashy filler stories, a few offered at least some insight into Levia Online, be that predominantly its fictional history. More notably, the act of reading was pumping up her intelligence, which was going to make her fire spells even more deadly, and hopefully give her some extra mana. She really had only two things she did for the party, throw [Firebomb]s and financial accounting, the latter she knew well enough before ever coming to Levia. For Sakura, getting out of this game and back to her family was the most critical thing in the world, and this training might be putting them one step closer to home. She had to remind herself of that, every five minutes or so, and every time she saw the naive Daphne.

Even by clearing out every single mob near Baldor’s Loft, no one in the group gained another level, not even close. Gecko’s only gave them [2 EXP] each since they reached level two, and the boss experience had been drastically nerfed as well. Even the item drops had become little more than vendor trash trinkets. It wasn’t like the mobs had become suddenly weak either. Without Sakura and Daphne, Edge would be training here for the rest of his life. Levia was incredibly unfair. It was almost as if the developers wanted you to die.

Edge had managed to think of a few more useful skills like camping and cooking to train, and hopefully make life away from Baldor’s survivable. Plus, it led to picnics in the sun, usually inside one of Sakura’s [Firebomb] craters, which were becoming more common in the area than tall grass. Edge sat in one such dry dusty dirt hole, unwrapping a sandwich he’d made from supplies he’d bought from Baldor. It cost more to buy ingredients than to buy lunch, but that was a familiar part of training skills in any game. Even if it didn’t make any sense.

“How long are we going to train for?” accused Daphne, who opted to sit in the grass. Her white dress didn’t agree with dirt. She simply refused to wear any of the more reasonable, responsible, and useful clothes offered to her. Something about brown and orange not going together . . . Edge didn’t get it.

“Until we’re stronger,” he answered. It was the same answer he always gave whenever asked.

“You always say that,” mentioned Sakura.

“Yeah,” Daphne swallowed, and slowly methodically spoke, “I agree with Sakura.” She might have pulled a muscle from the effort it took to speak those four words.

Eugene tried the silent treatment, since he really had no other options. People weren’t easy for him.

“It will take another twenty four days to reach level three,” added Sakura, pointedly.

Edge grunted. What difference would a few weeks be? It wasn’t like there was a big red door with an exit sign in Levia. Chances were, they’d die here sooner or later. Eugene would rather wait for later. An epiphany that even surprised him. He didn’t hate this life. He’d known worse, anyway . . . “What’s the rush?”

“Don’t you want to get home?” questioned Daphne. “At this rate, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

Would that be so bad? Sakura must have read something on his face.

“We should leave tomorrow, for Cobbletown,” she declared. “We won’t know what to do, until we know what’s going on,” the wise elf stated, practically.

Daphne turned to Eugene with that look of excitement behind her eyes. Eugene wondered, what would it be like to always feel like that, like there was something to live for, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? It was the type of naivety that made him want to puke. Yet, Daphne wasn’t so bad. It didn’t really hurt when she hit him.

He shrugged in reply, “kay, kay.” Maybe it was time to move on.

Unfortunately, Edge’s plan for the sleeping arrangements was voted down from night one. As it turned out, he was only allowed to be the leader of the group when Sakura and Daphne both agreed it was okay. The threesome shared a single room on the second floor of the loft, but Edge made it clear to them that they would have to sleep on the bed and he would sleep on the floor. The only reason he even agreed to the arrangement was because Daphne and Sakura threatened to make him sleep outside. Life had gotten a lot harder since Sakura was put in charge of their crystals!

But why did he have to wake up like this every morning?

As usual, at some point during the night, Daphne and Sakura had crawled into his bedroll. A furry tail rubbed against his face and Daphne was making an odd purring noise while holding his arm in a death lock. Of course, on the opposite side he was being engulfed by the tall Sakura, who’d somehow managed to entangle his other arm and both legs with her long lean limbs, while simultaneously twisting his head awkwardly between her breasts, a wad of pink hair poking him in the eye. A short time ago, the scene would have struck him as absurdly wrong, and entirely embarrassing. Now however, he’d gotten used to being treated like the girls least favourite teddy bear. But that didn’t mean he had to like it! After all, his restless nights ended with the same alarm clock every morning, a double punch ‘Pervert!’ combo attack!

Whatever can be said about his past or his future, the time he spent making his first friends, training for their sake, and learning to care for each other . . . These were the first moments that shaped his destiny.