The telltale sound of a scrambler woke Kent.

He deemed himself far enough way to inspect his health.

A brief glance helped affirm his current situation. He wasn’t dying. At least not directly. Compared to his mana it had barely ticked up. In fact, he had seemingly been asleep for an hour given that his mana was almost completely recharged from the previous exertion. In that time his health should have ticked up roughly twenty points.

It had increased by three.

He felt a good chunk better though, so that had to mean something. Pain had receded and he didn’t feel like passing out anymore. Further taking stock of his situation told him that getting up was still a terrible idea. The only upsite was that he wasn’t bleeding externally and couldn’t find a wound whatsoever.

The star and moon light wasn’t bright enough to discern color, but he was sure that his internals were of a different state entirely. But he felt it. Two breaths after waking up he had taken stock of his situation and deemed it not as terrible at expected at first.

That was all the time he had before the scrambler’s outline became visible.

The monster charged straight at him. Without any concern for its life or the carcass of the drop-pig nearby. Which was odd, as monsters tended to eat each other when they came across another dead one.

Kent really didn’t want to but given that he only had his three main daggers left, he accelerated one of his two Acsium Skeans into the scramblers face.

The monster dropped instantly. The speed at which the scrambler traveled forwards oddly halted as its head flew backwards after the impact and the main body still flying towards Kent. But the impulse of the dagger couldn’t halt the movement entirely. It fell short before Kent and rolled further towards him.

The resulting impact was luckily light, but not pain free.

He pushed the body of the monster off him and dragged himself a small distance before falling into slumber again.

***

Kent couldn’t tell how often he had fallen asleep and woken up again. Often wasn’t a count that made sense anymore. Time and counts had lost any meaning. The occasional dream and reality blurring over the course of the night. Only acting on instinct and retrieving his weapons under a lot of pain made any more sense.

Was almost automatic

The only upside was that Kent was at a point where he could dispose most monsters this close to Farburg at the cost of two mana. At first, he had used Penetrate as well, but its cost was greater than what he could recover in the small intervals of sleep he gained. Adding to his own tiredness. Luckily Accelerate Metal and Effect: Temporal Fitting were enough to dispose of every single monster that attacked him during the night.

Each time he woke he crawled a little closer to the drop-dead-pig. When he got there, he had mixed emotions.

The upside was that most of his daggers were easily extractable from the dead matter. The downside was the putrid metallic smell and disgusting spray of dead monster insides around the impacted tree.

When looking for the spell core – which he hoped to find within the shattered body – became painful he stopped and slept for a few minutes until the next monster detected him, surrounded by gore and blood. Only to return to looking through monster viscera in the hope of finding the core.

There was certainly a spell core bound to be somewhere within the monster. What kind he was unsure. ‘Relocation’ and ‘Omnidirectional’ were the most common types associated with drop pigs. Whether this evolution followed the same pattern Kent could only guess at.

He was hoping it would be something different. Anything else would be worth more than those two. Either would imbue items infused with those spell cores to make movement more effortless. With most of his knowledge in regards to spell cores stemming from Alexus, he assumed that the low worth he’d been informed about was accurate.

The remaining information came from the foreign goods market. Apparently caravans for example treated their wood with oil made from ‘Relocation’ spell cores. ‘Omnidirectional’ was a bit less useless, allowing certain properties to be shared across uneven surfaces and objects. The most common application in Farburg was, unexpectedly, wood. It could do a good job at reducing the chances of wood splintering, and he was sure that it would have other purposes as well.

Now Kent knew that he could sell them for at least a few sceats at the conquerors but that had him less than excited. Unless this had been a boss there would be little chance of there being a common spell core. But bosses were notoriously difficult to find outside dungeons.

Regardless of how much Kent distasted the work, he kept cutting up the monster, spewing blood all over the already soiled area. His actions were probably counter conducive in finishing his work uninterrupted – the smell of blood suffusing the air for quite a distance. Yet Kent didn’t mind most of the monsters that stumbled across him. They, just like the errant thoughts of previous events, kept his mind off the pain.

When the sun’s ray touched the earth again, he held his prize in his hands and within him. His body lay halfway between the lake and the zone proper.

He had reached level twenty-nine, barely. The five percent level progression the first fight had given him had been the greatest single contribution by far.

Spell Core: Shattering (minor) – A minor power source for magics. Slightly amplifies continuous applications of destructive force.

“This explains so much,” he growled as it dawned on him that he would find a healer soon.

First steps were to get found by someone that could bring him back to the city. With any luck Estes would be out looking for him. He should have a rough idea of where he went. And if not, Alexus might, though it was unsure whether Estes would consider asking the other boy. Kent had the option to lay down and wait for one of the people that usually came by to rescue him.

That wasn’t feasible though. An unhealed injury would seriously hinder most of his short-term plans he had hashed out over the last couple of days.

He was left with only one option.

While he wasn’t dying anymore – thanks to his regeneration, he still needed some sort of help.

In his condition, all Kent could do was slowly crawl towards the zone.

It felt like it took several bells to get past the lake, but it couldn’t have been more than half a bell based on the sun’s path across the horizon. He had passed the lake and eventually came across one of the most popular paths connecting the lake and the town. It was seemingly too early for people to head to the lake yet, so Kent continued, panting. Slowly grinding his clothes on the forest floor.

Taking a break wasn’t an option anymore, the worry of having the injuries heal further and causing damage that would be difficult to fix spurred him on endlessly.

He’d seen cripples, twice. And if there was anything he didn’t want, it was that.

Crawling through foliage for an agonizing amount of time brought tears to his face, until he finally felt the energy in the air stabilize. He’d crossed into the zone and finally left danger behind. His future was a possibility again. He kept crawling out of the forest into cultivated land.

Thankfully harvest season was in full bloom, bringing more people than usual out into the fields. With any luck, allowing Kent to raise awareness to his situation.

With some yelling he managed to attract a group of several agricultural workers. Only a few minutes after he’d begun drawing attention to him.

“Thunder’s luck boy. What happened to you?” one out of the three workers that that headed for him asked.

By this point Kent was far removed from caring what people knew about him. He needed a potion at least, a healer at worse. He told them, what he thought they needed to know, to act quickly.

“Got attacked by a drop-dead pig. It did something to me, and I think my hip is partially broken,” Kent responded, trying to not let the pain he felt show on his face.

“Drop-Dead you say? It’d be shattered, son. No chance of you crawling here. Bollocks, you don’t have any signs of injury on you! There aren’t…” the only man of the group said, before being interrupted by the third person. A similarly wiry looking woman with straw-hat and in farmer’s robes.

“Leave the boy alone Braggs, he is bloody all over. What more do you want? You need to stop being suspicious of everyone. Get the cart,” she instructed in an urgent tone. She looked at Kent. “Or do you think we could carry you without harming you further?”

“I think carrying should be fine. Maybe we can try that?” Kent probed. He needed medical attention, and probably soon. Waiting for a cart wasn’t ideal he guessed. But it might make transport more comfortable.

Testing turned out to be painful. Each of the present people could carry him easily but not without inflicting even more pain than he experienced through crawling. Thus, they waited for the cart to arrive. While waiting, Kent explained a bit of his situation to the woman that had stood up for him, Melissa, and her sister Meira.

Both were surprised that he had managed to fight the monster at all, and even managed to deal with it in such a manner. Though he did embellish the truth a bit. Making adjustments to the event, like claiming the monster had charged through the forest instead of being propelled by him should cause the people to be less suspicious of his low level, while hopefully staying believable.

At least he hoped so. It was hard to tell what people knew about him from the system in the first place. System concealment was a factor he couldn’t determine and skills varied too much in the first place to make a proper assessment.

As the cart arrived, several sacks of birin already loaded on it, Kent sighed in relieve.

Heaving him on the cart hurt a bit, but less than he expected. Melissa pulled him back into the city with apparent ease, even promising to get him to a healer friend of hers that was really good at his job, being in his fourth year of having acquired his trait.

All that was put on hold when they came across an irrate Estes at the gate.

“Stop lazing about kid. You can romance the farmhands after work. Where were you? I’ve been waiting for half a bell. We are late. If we wanna clear out a good chunk of forest,” he yelled. Kent, as someone who didn’t like shouting, was already put off by the man’s unabated talking just ignored the man. He should at least have been able to tell that Kent was bloody all over. Which was the exact point at which Kent realized that he had a few burlap sacks over his body to help him retain some heat in the morning chill. He brushed those off and watched as the other’s face twisted from a mixture of anger and annoyance to worry and confusion.

“What’d you do?” Estes asked but his question was drowned out by Melissa shouting at the man for his inconsiderateness and brashness.

“Can’t you see that he’s clearly in a bad way. I don’t know who you are, but if you care about…”

Kent smiled. He liked Melissa. There weren’t many people that were able to outtalk Estes, but the older man was still on the backfoot after being surprised by Kent’s injury.

It took just a count of twenty for Estes to realize the rough outline of the situation, and given by the volume of Melissa’s voice and the stares all people on the streets had heard about it as well. The moment he began to understand what had happened he wanted to drag him off to one of his healer acquaintances.

Melissa wanted to hear none of that.

But before that, Kent insisted on thanking Melissa. Not only for helping him get to the city but also for keeping him calm. He might have had a breakdown if Melissa hadn’t exchanged kind words with him during the trip.

Kent felt awful for having taken that much time out of the Melissa’s day, but she assured him that all was fine. In fact, she claimed that she should probably be thankful for she had planned on heading to the lake during the day and it could have been her – someone else with no combat skills – that would have been attacked.

That felt a little morbid, but he accepted it.

What he didn’t accept was the medical treatment that he was able to receive. Estes had insisted on paying one of the cities established health professionals for his care. The cost could have most likely exceeded a few mancus, which was more than Kent had to his name. Not only that, but Kent felt it was a poor trade. He could get most of the services for free and what he couldn’t get, namely the regeneration of health he was able to do himself with a single night of shut eye. He only needed realignment of his bones, which should be covered by the kingdom.

Issar had a policy in place that required people that wanted to operate as doctors or healers to serve for five years before they would be allowed to have their own independent business. This was mostly financed through taxes and trade as well as dungeon trade goods. The services provided by the healers wasn’t anything grand – it wouldn’t allow you to be on your feet straight away, but their mission was to make sure people wouldn’t carry permanent damage through their lives.

If he had a say in that he would want them to do more. Then again, he didn’t know the details of that arrangement and was thankful for the chance of receiving any care at all.

Together Melissa and Estes quickly carted Kent off towards treatment. The healer he was brought to lived on the border to the second district, within the earthen district, and Melissa hadn’t shut up about him once.

They approached a specific earth mount that had a slightly different taint than the other buildings he had seen thus far. Instead of dirt and clay the building looked to be made from dark grey, black, and brown natural rock. Its size, a good piece smaller than many of the surrounding buildings made the building look unassuming. There was a complete lack of plants or adornments, making the hovel appear unimpressive from the outside.

This didn’t really change once they entered, but Kent certainly raised an eyebrow. A gust of warm aromatic steam came over them as Melissa opened the door. The pleasant smell perked him up and the dimly lit inside felt comforting and inviting.

He was picked up as the cart was too large to fit through the door. One thing became apparent quickly was that this wasn’t a place for your regular earth traited. Kent couldn’t wait to meet the person that lived and worked here.

“Good morning, Melissa,” an oddly suppressed voice came through the steam. “I’ll be right along, unless it is urgent.”

“It might be, I’ve got someone with me that fought a drop-dead-pig,” she said. Something dropped deeper inside the cave and steps rushed closer. “I didn’t even know what they could do until Bragg’s told me.”

“Quickly, carry them to the bench,” the voice instructed. Coming closer until a person seemingly coalesced out of the steam without moving. A door slammed shut, shocking Kent. The resulting twist caused another jolt of pain to erupt from his stomach. “How are there no external injuries? Did you take a potion?”

The newly appeared human was a bit uncanny if Kent was honest. He couldn’t place the person whatsoever. Their bold head looked odd for someone of roughly his own age and the almost completely white eyes were interesting. Only then did he realize the question.

But before he could answer the next question was asked. Motion froze as the words were uttered.

“Why is there no human blood in the air or on you? Are you a human, boy?”

“I don’t know why but I haven’t taken a potion,” Kent responded. “All I know is that I wasn’t hit by the monster directly, sir?” He continued after a small break. “But I am human, as far as I know.”

Kent threw an identify at the person as he was heaved onto a clay and rock podium.

Human – Natural Shaper – Level 46

That sounds impressive, I think? The last thoughts before he felt a similar retching sensation to before. This time only more intense, abrupt, and painful.

The continued pain overwhelmed his mind. Forcing Kent to drift off into nothingness.

***

The occasional outside impression woke Kent from his slumber. It didn’t feel natural anymore and only now did Kent realized what his avowal of the Tranquil pool really did for him. Each time waking up it felt like being retched from some bizarre figment of his mind. He had no sense of the events around him. Instead, he felt like his sense of wakefulness was actively stripped from him. Kent wasn’t about to think much less worry about that, as he simply was too tired.

People did speak around him. He was able to tell that much. But he couldn’t make sense of anything. He couldn’t decipher nor remember anything.

“That’s all I can do for now,” the unfamiliar voice said. “We will have to wait for several hours until my mana has regenerated by a bit. His resistance towards my sedation is extremely high and you saw how much he twisted when I restitched his abdomen.”