The second girl missed the thrust, and the spear stabbed the meaty flank of the Wild Boar instead of the neck. The beast went wild, thrashing and wailing, and the twelve year old girl fell back with a frightened gasp. With the backyard being surrounded by the outbuildings and the backside of the Bedstone inn, the piercing wail of the monster was all the louder, echoing against the walls.

The five men holding the boar down with ropes and chains strained mightily as it bucked and kicked. “Hold,” growled the girl’s father, the muscle’s of his forearms bulging as he pulled on a chain.

Alex would bet the rest of his money Valerian could hold the monster down with one hand. But that wasn’t how things were done here in Riverbend, apparently. It was up to the girl’s family members, or at least the village folk themselves, to help her in slaughtering the monster.

The crew watched impassively from the wall nearest the inn, a few feet separated from the rest of the onlookers lined up in front of the spectacle. These were mostly the family members of the three twelve year olds that would take part in the Selection, along with other prominent members of Riverbend’s small village council, like Bryon the smith, the thatcher Jerome and his large wife Roselle, and a group of another three men and three women.

Orson, the innkeeper and mayor of Riverbend, walked up and approached the monster, watching carefully for the spear still stuck and waving in the air as the boar thrashed about. He waited for the perfect time, then deftly stepped in, grabbed at the shaft with one meaty hand, and yanked the spear out of the boar’s flank, which only made it wail even louder.

Alex was impressed. The mayor didn’t seem at all fazed by the Wild Boar and all the racket it was causing. Then again, he must have been helping in the Selection ceremony for decades now.

“We did it with a knife in our village,” Daven whispered. “More personal, I say. Builds character and all that.”

“Hush,” Diana said, but Cedric couldn’t hide a snort at the archer’s words. Lanna giggled softly by his side.

Up front, Orson handed the spear back to the girl, the blade still covered in the black blood of the Wild Boar. “Strike true now, girl,” he said.

The girl swallowed and nodded, but her grip was weak and her hands trembled on the shaft. Alex was no expert in spear handling, but Cedric sure was, and his near pained expression didn’t bring him confidence that the girl would, in fact, strike true this time.

But before the girl could have a second go, an elderly woman stepped up from the small crowd. She was a tiny thing, bent over and gap-toothed, but she walked up to the scared girl without a hitch in her small steps when she passed in front of the Wild Boar. That one had seen her fair share of Selections too, no doubt.

She had a word with the girl, who had to lean down a bit to get her ear by her elder’s mouth. It didn’t take more than a few seconds, and Alex didn’t hear what was said; but whatever it was worked. When the girl stepped up again, her hands were steady and her strike proved true.

The spear pierced the neck of the Wild Boar, who could only spasm and gurgle on the ground. When the monster finally broke into black dust, the weight on the spear was gone and the girl fell with a gasp again, though there was no fright in her voice now. It was wonder he heard. She had leveled up. Or plateaued, as they called it.

The solemn air of the ceremony was quick to break after that, and the people burst out into applause and cheers. Diana and Daven applauded the loudest beside him, and even Valerian had a fond look on his face as he applauded. Lanna also cheered, calling out the girl's name, Wyla.

No one had come out and told him, and he hadn’t been fool enough to come out and ask, but Alex had understood enough after watching the first girl kill her own Wild Boar. Since most people couldn’t deal with monsters, the villagers would come together and either capture one themselves or hire chasers to do it for them. That allowed the children to finally level up for the first time and pick a class.

It was odd that even this was different from his own powers. Unlike them, he got to pick a class at level zero. Here, they could only pick a class after leveling up the first time, and even then they would need another level before they could get a skill—or open a Gate, as it were.

A big decision to make, for a kid. Alex thought back to his last year of high school and all the pressure that came with picking where to go and what to do next. With his background, he had few choices as it were, but that didn’t make them any easier.

If you didn’t do this, then you were a loser. If you went that way, you’d be set for life, but hate your job. Follow your passions, and you might never make money in life. It might have been tough, but at least that happened when people back home were seven- or eighteen, and there weren't the same life-saving implications that picking your class in this world had.

“What happens if you regret the class you selected?” he asked the crew.

Cedric turned to look at him and smiled. “You’re not having second thoughts now, are you?”

“Oh, let’s go, Alex.” Daven swung an arm around him, suddenly excited. “Forget about this mage shit. I’ll teach you the ways of the bow. You can’t be my apprentice. It’s fine, I’ll only make you carry my stuff every other day.

Diana scoffed, and Alex had to agree. “I’ll pass, thanks,” he said dryly, pushing Daven away.

Mage hadn’t been his first choice, and he’d go to his grave blaming the entire Wild Boar monster-race for knocking him off the tree and making him pick the wrong class. But he couldn’t think of worse fates than being Daven’s whipping boy.

Then again, if there was a way to switch it… Alex wouldn’t be completely against it. Not immediately, as his build was heavily stacked on mage-favoring attributes like Power and Soul Affinity. However, he played enough games to know that the more powerful you get, the less the initial picks of your attributes matter.

There would be nothing wrong with a Rogue with thirteen points in Power and Soul Affinity as he had. Not if that Rogue was already level fifty.

“I was thinking more for the kids, you know. I was certain enough of what I wanted back then,” he lied easily. “But I’m sure there’s people out there who regret their choice. I just never bother to find out what to do when you’re one of them.”

To his surprise, it was Valerian who spoke next. “Time is not so easily bought,” he said from where he leaned against the wall. “There’s a price to pay for everything. For every action you take. Some are steeper than others, for this as in for anything else.”

Alex opened his mouth, then closed it. He had not response to that. Did the man have to sound so ominous all the time?

“Uh, what?” Daven scratched his head. Diana looked confused as well, only in a less moronic manner than her brother.

“Don’t scare the kids, Val,” Cedric said, trying to break the tension. He turned to Alex. “What the big man is trying to say is that you can change your class, it’s just not worth the hassle most of the time.”

“Meaning?”

“That you have to pay a price for it. For rolling time back to when you were twelve. Usually, it’s all the gates you’ve opened. Everything. For kids like them, they’d probably have to plateau again, open a gate, then discard it. The sacrifice is the essential part of it.”

There goes that idea, Alex thought bitterly. He put up an unbothered front. “Got it.”

“Look, the next one’s starting,” Lanna broke through their conversation. She nodded toward a small red-headed boy walking up front and center. “Little Peter. I remember looking after him when he was just a toddler. I was his age, I think. A bit younger, maybe. He was the cutest little thing.”

Alex looked up, and winced. The boy might’ve been the cutest little thing once, but whatever gods there were in this world had been cruel to him. He was tall for his age, long-limbed like a scarecrow. But his face was going through the most awkward phase possible, like it couldn't keep up with the rest of his body. His mouth was pinched, his eyes far apart, and bad acne bubbled up around his nose and forehead.

“Cutest, yes,” Cedric repeated wryly, and Daven covered his mouth with one hand and turned away to silently laugh. With the archer not looking, Cedric sidled up to Valerian and whispered, “He kind of looks like Daven, no?”

The man didn’t react, though a muscle did twitch on his face. Alex wondered if he would ever have a quest to get a full blown laugh out of Valerian.

The courtyard fell back into a sober silence as the final Wild Boar was brought in. The men corralling the beast were mostly the same folk as before, though two of them had the boy's red hair now, and the girl’s father stood at her side with the rest of the villagers. Orson seemed to be the master of ceremony of the whole thing, and he passed the now clean spear to the scarecrow boy when everything was in place.

“Breathe, boy,” the innkeeper said. “Breathe and steady yourself. Then strike.”

Holding the spear with both hands, the boy nodded with confidence his sweat-matted hair belied. He stopped to inhale, and the whole courtyard seemed to hold its breath with him.

In the silence, Alex heard a shout in the distance. A woman? Maybe the stout lady had won the drinking competition again, successfully defending her crown for the eight time. She did look like someone with a loud voice.

Another shout, a man’s this time. And closer. They are getting rowdy out there.

Alex frowned, and the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly pricked up. No, that wasn’t right. The village green was to the south east of the Bedstone inn. Past the bridge. The shout had come from the western part of Riverbend, further north by the forest he had gone to train two days before.

It was then that the ground started to rumble. The wooden walls of the pigsty and the chicken coop shook. Dust kicked up. The villagers in the courtyard looked around confused, and the boy who had been about to stab the boar pulled back.

Cedric was the first to react. “Stampede!” he yelled, stepping in front of Lanna. “Wild Boar stampede!”

But by then the first of them had broken into the courtyard, and Alex’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Through the gap between two outbuildings, a true monster emerged, running at them in full tilt.

Cedric was wrong. It wasn’t a Wild Boar or a Killer Sloth that appeared. Nor was it one of the nightmarish monsters from the twisted forest of the dungeon’s second stage.

This was worse. More man than monster, armed and armored in iron, with swelling muscles and gravelly red skin. And with a swing of a wicked-looking axe, Jerome the thatcher lost his head before his wife could even start screaming. Blood sprayed in an arc, bathing the stunned villagers behind him in a sea of red.

Then the screaming started, and everything went to shit.