Living a Long Life as a Legend (Original. Medieval game-world reincarnation)

[bor902]

Living a Long Life as a Legend

Editor: 5th dimension (He's on Fanfiction only, so don't bother looking for him on RoyalRoad)

Chapter 1




Lock was lying on his back bunching up a pillow in his arms, looking for faces in the wooden ceiling above and trying to find a way to articulate the first real moral conundrum he'd encountered in the world he now inhabited.


He gesticulated a bit with his arms, before giving up the motion. "It's just... He's my grandfather, you know. He's the person who taught me most of what I know about fighting and travelling. He was the one to babysit me when my father didn't have time because of potioneering. And now I'm supposed to kill him?!" he exclaimed finally.


Cindy shuddered next to him, shakily laid a hand on his bare chest, and groaned articulately.


"It wouldn't be so hard if the old man wasn't so damn nice about it! He even went and filled all of his class slots, so I would gain more when I finally did him in. That's like fattening yourself up as a pig to be slaughtered! What if I would rather have my grandpa for a few more years rather than some levels?" he asked heatedly. To which Cindy finally opened her mouth.


"Can't you just refuse to kill him? He can hardly throw himself onto your sword if you refuse to hold it," she pointed out.


A valid point, but… "You know, I told him the exact same thing, Cindy, I did, I swear." He tousled her red hair. "I guess great minds think alike."


He went back to his diatribe. "You know what he said? He told me that if I refused, he would have one of my cousins do it. He mentioned Ross specifically as his ritualistic killer, because he knows I don't like the little shit, the old bastard!" he cursed and slammed his hand down onto the bed.


The slam didn't accomplish much apart from making the mattress bounce a bit, but Lock was pleased. The act of physical aggression had definitely added some oomph to his emotional distress.


"Well. He has you by the balls, I guess," Cindy said and shrugged as her hand wandered lower down his body.


Lock reluctantly nodded. "Yes, he definitely has me in checkmate, doesn't he? I didn't really bring up the issue because I was looking for some groundbreaking revelation. It's just annoying talking to my family or friends about it since they all don't see an issue with the tradition." They just saw it as normal, as did most people whose grandparents had the same thing to offer their descendants.


Lower class people like Cindy had likely never really experienced the situation before, since they didn't take on combat classes that would gain any exp from killing. Which meant they were more understanding of the morality issue he was experiencing. Probably.


"I like lending an ear, and you're not dumb..." She must have seen his grin because she stopped in the middle of the sentence and continued with another one. "You're smart enough to differentiate between a whore and a philosopher at least."


"So you think I'm smart, do you?" he said, to which the redhead rolled her eyes.


"Just let me do my job, will you?"


-/-


Lock pulled a beautification potion from the pants he'd just put on and gently threw it onto the king sized bed, next to the exhausted whore.


"This should cover the tab for this week's visits," he said as he pulled on his brown doublet. It was slightly too big for him, having been bought with the knowledge that he'd grow into it.


"Common grade potion, I see you've improved your alchemy again. You'll be an official adventurer soon as well. Moving up in the world, are we?" she commented as she stored away the potion into the nightstand next to the bed.


Lock laughed at her veiled question. "I don't plan on raising my Strength attribute as you well know, only my Endurance, so I'll be coming to visit you for quite a few years more."


Cindy stood up and started to dress. "That may be, but you're already tiring me out every time you visit with your beloved Endurance. It might not break me like it would have if you had double my Strength, but its still taking up more and more time. I'll probably have to raise the amount you pay me for a night."


Lock hummed, slightly too distracted by the older woman dressing herself to immediately take in her words.


His physical stats were already higher than hers. When he actually turned sixteen, he registered as an adventurer and started gaining class levels, and therefore attributes. His Endurance would become several times hers, which would make each session longer. It would take up time that she would, in the past, have had for other customers. It was only natural to pay more.


"I agree, more time spent between your legs naturally means more money spent. It won't be an issue though, since with attributes, I will also be gaining more coin." Receiving a nod from Cindy, he made to leave, but turned around just as he was about to close the door behind him. "Maybe you can give some thought to getting a combat class and letting someone boost you a bit to increase your physical stats." He left for real afterwards, not wanting to rush her into answering.


The outside was surprisingly warm considering that it was night out. He glowered at the additional hustle and bustle created by the pleasant temperature. One of the reasons Lock did most of his business right before the advent of the night was because he did not like big congregations of people. You could never keep an eye out for all of them and they were in most cases harder to predict than small groups.


Why was it so warm in the first place? Well, there weren't many plausible explanations. Only one suspect really stood out. Putting a hand to the ground confirmed his suspicion. The sewer system beneath the city was receiving one of its irregular cleanings.


The more appropriate word would probably be cleansings. Since the city's mage guild was paid to send several dozen pyromancers down there to, quite literally, subject the filthy river of refuse in the city's underground tunnels to an equally impressive river of hellfire.


Which, contrary to its name, was quite efficient at removing filth.


Lock didn't want to imagine the smell the city would be subjected to if all entrances and exits to the sewer weren't temporarily enchanted to stop the smell from escaping. The lack of the usual background stink emitted by the city probably also contributed to the larger-than-usual crowd of people in the red-light district.


He chuckled to himself. Ironic, for people to be drawn out by the lack of stench, and then to be the reason behind a completely different cacophony of unpleasant aromas.


Lock thankfully wasn't forced to push his way through the masses, it was a blessedly smaller congregation than during daytime. It also helped that he was openly carrying a short sword and dagger at his side. Something only allowed to people who were in possession of a combat class.


An odd restriction, he'd once thought, since it wasn't as if you could see others' classes and so determine when a person was carrying a weapon illegally. A hidden weapon was usually more dangerous than one that was flaunted anyway.


But as he'd come to learn, people who were in possession of combat classes were quite simple to distinguish from those who weren't.


The more muscular state of the body, due to the training, the way they moved, acted. It all differed greatly from Non-Professional-Combatants, NPCs.


He had also believed that the reason for the law was so that people knew who to turn to in the case of an attack, but his grandfather had cleared up that preconception pretty quickly. It was a rule meant to showcase one's status in the society of humanity. People willing to pick up a weapon and swing it at monsters to defend their race were naturally worth more than those who weren't.


That might have not been the case were they not living in a world where actual monsters roamed the land, but it was not so, and so it wasn't.


Societies always looked up to people in possession of their collectively preferred traits.


It wasn't as if it was impossible to rise up the social ladder as an NPC. It was just harder.


He glanced at a few young men who were leaning on the wall of a shabby tavern, staring straight ahead with drool running down their chins. He grimaced. Well, neither was it impossible to sink one's social status even lower than it already was.


Lock hurried with his steps as he made his way home, with one last stop in between signalling the end of his day.


A few minutes of solitary walking later, he ducked into a stereotypically dark and grimy alleyway, where he was then pulled through an almost invisible door, quite stereotypically, by a dark figure dressed in a rather expected manner.


Lock was immediately let go as the door behind him shut, and he theatrically patted off the parts of his clothes that had come in contact with his kidnapper.


"That was ridiculous, please don't do it again," he commented at Shink, who had shed his hood to reveal his hooked nose and bulging eyes to the world.


Shink glanced down at him and shrugged with the one arm he still had. Well, it was hard not to look down on someone when they were two feet smaller than you.


Lock rolled his eyes at the man. "I know you think its cool, but it really isn't. I almost stabbed you as well. Be glad I recognized your tall frame."


Shink gave a nasty grin at that. It seemed to be insinuating that, even had he tried, Lock would have never been able to actually stab him. Lock actually agreed with the rogue.


He probably wouldn't have been able to do so, but it was the principle of the matter to be boisterous, beyond common sense, about one's own capabilities. Therefore, he rolled his eyes right back. "Definitely could have."


"I'm quite sure about it actually, you see, when walking into the alley I intentionally kept myself at an angle pendicu-" Lock continued, only to be rudely interrupted by a bag of gold to the face. A bag he was thankfully able to catch, even if it stung his hand a little due to the force behind the throw. His face was too beautiful to be marred for even a day.


"Honestly, all money is a metal, couldn't they have just made paper a currency or something? I swear, it's so hard to lug this stuff around," Lock muttered to himself as he put the small bag away somewhere on his body, then pulling out a small packet of fragrant yellow paper.


Not that it was the paper that mattered, Shink was paying him for what was inside the packet. Lock handed it over, glad to be rid of the stuff. Upon receiving the packet, Shink gave him a nod and stepped back into the shadows of the room, in which he promptly blended in and disappeared.


Lock considered informing the man that it didn't matter much if he was in stealth, Shink was hardly capable of teleportation or opening either of the two doors leaving the room without him noticing it. It made the entire act of going into stealth fairly useless and unnecessarily theatrical.


This story semi stems from the thought, if people were worth exp, wouldn't grandparets let themselves get ritually murdered by their grandchildren on their deathbed?

Also because I wanted to write an original. Reincarnation and the gamer seem to be the only tropes I regularly write about. It's almost like they were my favourite.

 

[bor902]

Chapter 2

Editor: 5th dimension


Lock arrived at his family estate without issues. Although referring to the place as an estate was a bit far-fetched. Their small garden wasn't capable of supporting their entire family, at least not agriculturally. Financially was another story, with all the plants being grown in the garden being of the alchemical variety that his father used to support his occupation as an alchemist.



Lock arrived at his family home, yes. That sounded better.



He walked past the still-lit alchemist workshop, which told him that his father was either still working, or had fallen asleep doing so again. He opened the door to the main house to find his grandfather waiting for him in his favourite armchair, and almost shouted out in surprise.



Gripping his hear, thanking the heavens that they lived slightly outside of Abrakshana, he sat himself down on the velvet couch facing his grandfather. The atmosphere tasted odd, the lit fireplace being the only source of light, throwing a rather intimidating pallor on the whole living room.



His grandfather sat there silently, eyes gazing into nothing, arms hanging lazily on the armrests. Lock had never seen Abraxas up so late, the old man preferring to retire for the evening at sunset.



Oh, wait, Abraxas slept with his eyes open. Lock rolled his, stood up and gently shook the frail-looking man, causing his eyes to flicker back into focus and his body to twitch... before apparently deciding to fall asleep again.



"Is it morning yet? Let me sleep," were his exact words.



Well, if his grandfather was waiting in the living room to talk to someone, it was probably him. So the correct course of action would be to wake him up again and let him get his bearings, for what would undoubtedly be a rather uncomfortable conversation. Lock considered it a great showing of the love he held for his family that he only considered not doing so for a fleeting moment.



A few more gentle shakes woke the man up completely. Lock watched as Abraxas rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes and sat up straight before fixing him with his gaze.



It was a slightly more intimidating one than Lock was used to. He got along well with his grandfather and comported himself in a manner that did not necessitate any harsh gazes, words, or actions.



It would be quite embarrassing to be chastised by someone who was mentally the same age as him and for someone of that age, no matter the age of his body, to behave in a way deserving of chastisement.



Now, locked under the intimidating gaze of his grandfather, he couldn't help but note that while they might share the same amount of worldly experience, the experience of his grandfather was composed of events quite different from his own.



Namely battle, and the killing that came with it. Not necessarily just the killing of monsters either.



It was intimidating, yes, but Lock held the gaze, unwilling to look away. If a simple look from a person who he knew would never harm him was capable of making him shrink back in fear, then what would he do when confronted with an actual monster?



"Found the answers you were looking for while talking in the pillows?" Abraxas asked grumpily, defaulting back to his less serious demeanour.



Well, one of the few things that his grandfather begrudged him were his visits to women of ill repute. Though how the man could tell, and then accordingly almost scare him shitless with his displeasure was a mystery.



He subtly took a whiff of himself. A bit of perfume still clung to him. Oh well.



"I did. Talking to someone who had no background tainting their view of the tradition let me take on a more clear perspective of the issue at least," Lock answered, lying slightly. The help his talk with Cindy had provided was minimal at best. He was simply wording it in a way that defended his hobby.



His grandfather visibly relaxed, slumping from his straight posture and stroking his short white beard. "Good, good."



"I shall bear the burden of your sacrifice fully. May the might I receive help me in my quest and the guilt not burden me," Lock said solemnly.



"Guilt is worthless; it can only be felt for actions and missed opportunities that are in the past. It's not like you could repeat the process that made you feel guilty. You only have one grandfather after all," Abraxas said, and laughed.



Lock grimaced at the reminder, "How... eloquent."



His vis-a-vis shrugged.



"I think guilt is a bit of a strong word in hindsight. The phenomena is fairly worthless after all. As you've pointed out, it only bogs down the present and distracts you from the future," Lock continued as his grandfather listened. "I simply fear that the ritual will taint all the fond memories of my childhood that we shared together. That the image will always come up when I think back on simpler days."



"You're talking about the image of my slit throat right?" Abraxas asked, with a grin.



"Grandfather!"



They sat in silence for a while after Lock's chastisement, listening to the crackle of the fire and looking each other in the eyes.



Brown and blue, young and old, living and dead.



"Will it be a slit throat?" Lock asked solemnly. "I've been too preoccupied with participation, to ask what the ritual even is..."



Abraxas leaned back. "It depends on the class of the receiver. It needs to be structured in such a way that the class you want to advance most gets the experience."



Lock rolled his eyes. "Well, I knew that, it's quite obvious. I was more wondering if there are any traditions to fulfil, particular steps to take to make it easier."



"I don't know," his grandfather admitted, which made Lock nod.



"It makes sense. I image every family has its own way of doing things?" Lock asked.



"Yes, I asked around in my still-living circle of friends." Abraxas shook his head. "It's all individual, fasting, vigils, runes, and specific ways to live your life in the year leading up to the ritual. My peasant ancestry once again got one over me." He sighed. "I had thought the days of me getting tripped up by a lack of knowledge were over."



"They never are. I imagine that knowing everything would be quiet boring as well. Any preferences to how you want to die?"



"Think of which class you want to funnel the exp into. I can make my decision then."



"I will need some time to consider the question."



"Tomorrow."



"Yes. Goodnight, grandfather."



-/-



The rhythmic clanging of the church bell awakened him from his stupor. Made aware of his uncomfortable position, crouching before the graves as he was, Robert stood up.



The gravel crunched behind him, heralding an approaching person.



"What is death?" a melodic voice asked.



"The ceasing of all bodily functions," Robert answered. He had never been an overly empathetic person, so he noted with some surprise that he was apparently capable of feeling the amusement of the person behind him.



"Simple words to understand a phenomenon that is anything but," the voice mused.



"Death is what it is, something to be avoided." And to be feared, but he kept that part to himself.



"Just because your opinion is the only one that matters, does not mean all answers must come from within." The voice was chastising now, as if talking to a small child that was incapable of seeing a simple truth.



But he was not a child.


"Convince me otherwise, then."

 

[bor902]

Chapter 3

This chapter basically explains the game system, we will never go as in-depth as we will do here again.



Lock blearily stared at his ceiling, his alarm clock ringing in the background. He sprang up, divesting himself of the several layers of blankets enveloping the body and shut the thing up.



He went to his window, opened it, and looked down to the ground beneath. Well, ground was a misnomer. It was more of a pond really.



A pond he then proceeded to jump into from his second story room. A splash resounded throughout the empty yard, and Lock resurfaced after spending some moments appreciating the songs of the deep.



It may have been summer, but the time he woke up at was always a few minutes before sunrise. Which meant that the water was quite cold. His body started shivering as he watched the sun slowly rise.



He'd taken a subpar room as his bedroom just to do what he'd just done. Jumping out of a window, a dozen meters high up as it was, delivered enough adrenaline into his body to wake him up. The cold water also helped.



The small pond served as a place where he warmed up, swimming some laps as he watched the sun slowly peek over the mountains and then rise above them fully.



"A crown of golden heat,

Where the mountains meet the sky,

A spectacle that's hard to beat,

To wake up to, so say I."



Lock presented the poem he'd just created spontaneously. He heard some claps from higher up, and turned around to see Abraxas watching him from the open living room's window. "I don't know much about poetry, but at least I know poems are supposed to rhyme. Good job on that part," the old man commented. He was noticeably tired, which made sense. Abraxas was nearing ninety years old. Lock had never seen his grandfather wake up so early before.



"It's a beautiful morning, no clouds in sight to prevent me from gazing upon the sun's glory. There is many a reason to break into song; be happy I was able to contain myself to poetry." Lock grinned. "My singing voice is quite horrid, or so I've been told."



So-so, was the hand gesture his grandfather made.



"I must leave to do my morning tribulations now, grandfather, I'll be back in an hour or so. Will you prepare something to quench our hunger in the meanwhile?" Lock asked.



"Terribly long way of saying you're gonna train and will be hungry after," Abraxas commented, still leaning on the rail.



"Verbosity is often seen as a sign of great wisdom, and being perceived as such is always useful."



"Respect opens many doors. You seem... quite more..." Abraxas paused before saying the next word, as if tasting it on his tongue, "verbose than usual, though."



"I see you noticed the discrepancy. The issue I am momentarily experiencing is a too high level of energy within my body. It is like this everytime I wake up. Training will fix the issue," Lock said and made to leave towards the part of the yard where he always trained in the mornings.



"I think you're just yanking my chain because of your misplaced sense of humour," Abraxas muttered as he watched his grandson stray further away. "Be prepared for a busy week. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve!" he shouted after him, receiving a wave in return.



-/-



Training the body was quite a dull action after you'd repeated it often enough. It gave Lock time to think about the decision he had to make, about which class to funnel his grandfather's exp into.



The fact that Alchemist was a non-combat class immediately disqualified it. Which left Vanguard and Assassin. The two suffered under the opposite constraints from Alchemist, only being capable of levelling up with combat.



It made for a pitiful sight, his two combat classes at level one, while his Alchemist one was already nearing level 10, where it would receive its first big upgrade. The only downside was that points gained through levelling Alchemist could not be placed into Endurance.



He was stuck with a large mana pool due to dumping all stats from Alchemist into Wisdom, and nothing to use it on. Well, to say it was worthless was going a bit far. The more mana a person had the slower they aged, which, while not the reason for why he'd picked up alchemy, was still a nice bonus.



Lock still preferred Endurance over Wisdom, though. While Wisdom directly translated into mana, and that directly translated into aging speed, Endurance also made you feel younger, stronger, and hardier. The mana would come in handy soon, though, once he managed to become a Healer.



But that was the future, and his was the now, Lock thought to himself as he ran around the small clearing.



Okay, stat distribution didn't matter between his two choices. Both Assassin and Vanguard could put points into physical stats, namely the only physical stat that he cared about. Endurance. Endurance was made up of several smaller factors such as vitality, stamina, resistance to debuffs, and so on.



So the Stats made no difference. The only difference would be the Skills he could gain from levelling the Class. While you had to manually learn a specific set of skills to learn a Class, like the combination of stealth and backstab for Assassin, levelling it up afterwards granted Skills.



Mostly Skills that one would have a hard time learning naturally. Supernatural skills, so to say. Being stealthy and practised at killing people from behind was all humanly possible. The game giving a small buff to the damage like a successful backstab did wasn't very impressive.



Some of the Skills one could unlock as a level five Assassin, though, were not something easily achievable by humans. Blend in for example was a skill that, supposedly with the help of bending light, let the user seemingly merge with shadows, significantly increasing the effectiveness of stealth.



It was the skill Shink had used to disappear from his view after their transaction. Which had been comedic, since he'd had to wait for Lock to leave before doing so himself. Being harder to see did not mean one could stealthily open doors, after all.



Another possibility was Sanguine Spray, which made any wounds he inflicted more prone to bleeding, and semi-cursed to resist the body's natural healing and even low-level magical healing.



The skill he was most interested in was that one. He would become a tank after all, which meant that his fighting style would be a battle of attrition. Any wounds inflicted on the enemy sapping their strength even faster would be useful.



The problem with him funnelling the Exp into his Assassin Class, though, was that he really needed a skill in the Vanguard Skill Tree.



Bulwark was a skill that would close one fatal weakness that he would attain through only putting points into Endurance. He was tougher than he was strong. It did not matter how many hits you could take, if even one of them at sufficient strength was powerful enough to send you flying.



Bulwark fixed that issue by makings its user immune to any knockback effects. Lock would still take the damage, but he would not be moved, not even if a dragon flew into him. He would probably die, but he would be able to stand his ground until he was crushed to death and the Skill disabled.



The only problem, and why the decision between Assassin and Vanguard even had to be made, was that Bulwark was a Skill that required level ten to get, not five. And while he was sure that he would get five levels from killing his grandfather, he wasn't quite sure about ten. The worth of Exp tapered off in five level increments.



The choice of skills one had upon reaching level five in Vanguard was quite subpar to say the least. One could choose between Shield Bash and Power Strike. The Shield bash was a simple movement skill that aimed to stun the enemy by running at him with a shield. And Power Strike was not something applicable to his skillset, requiring a two-handed weapon to use. He would be forced to take Shield Bash, which didn't fit him very well either, since the Skill mostly relied on the Strength of the person using it.



Lock finished a pull-up and collapsed on the ground, looking at the sky and watching some lonely clouds pass by. The choice didn't matter all too much in the end really. Adventuring for a few months should be enough to get both Classes to level ten.



He was prepared for that type of life, and unlike many others, he could hardly imagine himself failing at any point.



But he liked to make the best possible decision in every situation. Sanguine Spray was a useful skill, one that he should get as early as possible so he could start levelling it. While Bulwark was something that did not level up, being a passive effect, he still needed it so he could get used to having it.



He whimpered. His head hurt.



He didn't need Sanguine Spray per se. He was an alchemist; he could cheaply produce poisons and apply them to his daggers. It would strengthen his ability to slowly bleed out his enemies, sure, but he could technically do without it for a while.



But Shield Bash was worthless to him. He only needed a shield before he got Bulwark, so he had something heavy to anchor him to the ground while he took heavy hits meant for his party.



Wait, the longer he needed to level Vanguard, the longer he would be forced to lug around that hideous shield. So from a time perspective, it was better to level up Vanguard so he could throw away the cumbersome thing earlier.



Decision made, the pressure in his head abated. Lock sighed in relief. "So many choices, but we only feel comfortable after we've made one."



The fact that he'd been training while trying to decide probably hadn't helped matters, but at least both were done now. The most unpleasant activities of the day behind him, Lock smiled and headed back to the house, his growling stomach guiding him.

 

[bor902]

Chapter 4

How people could enjoy the act of training itself was beyond him. Gruelling work was what it was. They must be lying, yeah. Everybody only trained for the benefits of it, or because they needed to for their career choice. He chuckled at himself for having believed for even a second that people enjoyed making their body scream in agony.



Sure, the part that came after the training was nice. Pleasantly exhausted muscles, feeling of accomplishment, heightened brain activity for the day, a surplus of oxygen, and an increase in physical stats, but the activity itself? Horrid.



Lock would have been sipping muscle enchanters for years now if they didn't have so many negative side effects.



He would have maybe not seen it as that bad, if he could ever stop with it, but as one gained levels, one had to train much more than previously to adapt the body to its new power. His future prospects of a fun morning looked bleak as he entered the house to a distinctly meaty smell.



He blinked incredulously at the bowl of food that awaited him on the kitchen table. Then he glanced at the creator of this monstrosity, happily eating his portion of what could only be described as a meat salad.



Abraxas met his eyes defiantly after he finished vigorously chewing. "What? I promised myself I would never eat gruel again after I gained enough money to afford meat on a regular basis."



Lock glanced at the bowl, Thin strips of different sorts of flesh steaming away, a half molten stick of butter slowly disappearing on top, and a ridiculous amount of spices turning the meat a more vibrant red than it had been when uncooked.



He hesitantly picked up a piece and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly and noted that it didn't taste all that bad. It was just unnecessarily greasy and springy enough that it turned chewing into a chore.



He glanced doubtfully at his still happily-eating grandfather. Weren't older people supposed to have worse teeth? Must have been his grandfather's Strength or Endurance helping him.



He opened the alchemical fridge, pulled out some milk and apples, and sat at the table. He occasionally dared to eat a piece of the meat when the taste of apples grew too stale.



He finished quickly, and soon after his grandfather did as well. "You're going to need to eat more when you start levelling constantly," Abraxas commented when he noticed how little his grandson had eaten.



"I know. I imagine I'll be quite famished after the ritual. Especially since I'll be putting all the points into a single stat."



"So, have you decided?"



"Yeah, Vanguard."



His grandfather raised an eyebrow. "Damn, I was sure you'd pick Assassin with how much you talk about wars of attrition."



Lock shrugged. "I know it's ironic considering I'm a vanguard, but I hate using a shield. The sooner I get access to Bulwark the better."



"Yes, yes."



"So, how we are we going to proceed?" Lock asked, to which his grandfather shrugged.



"The exp would have gone to your Assassin class had I let you drug me into sleep and slit my throat while I was snoring away. Vanguard probably requires you to stand against me in single combat and hit me with a shield until I go splat," he said, making Lock grimace again.



"Phrasing, please," Lock groaned out. "Also, probably?"



Another shrug. "It's not like the exp has anywhere else to go. It's between Assassin and Vanguard. I hardly think killing me in single combat without ambushes will make the exp go anywhere but Vanguard," he explained.



"Alright, what now?"



"What, what now?"



"Grandfather, you have less than a week to live. Don't you want to do something special?" Lock asked with a frown.



"Well, now that you decided what Class you'll be funnelling my death into, I would like to take you out into the wilderness and let you get some levels in Assassin," grandfather answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.



Lock clenched his fists under the table. "It's not supposed to be about me. It's supposed to be about you," he said quietly.



"Man, you can cut the tension here with a knife," a tired voice muttered. Lock's father, Arcturus made his way into the kitchen. The gaunt man was still dressed in his sleeping gown, with a pair of cute bunny slippers adorning his feet.



"Yes, it was, and you ruined it," Lock muttered. His father laughed.



"Well excuse me for not liking the dramatic atmosphere you always seem to make." Arcturus rolled his eyes. "You should have gone and become an actor, make your favourite hobby into a profession."



Lock would have bristled if it wasn't true. He did like weaving a bit of drama into everyday life. It made everything more fun, and having fun for the rest of eternity was the reason why he'd become immortal in the first place, and why he was aiming for it again, even if it was a more physical way he was pursuing.



That didn't mean it had to be described so flippantly. He shot his nodding grandfather a betrayed look before speaking. "Every moment needs a bit of gravitas; life is like a book. I'm just trying to make it an entertaining one." He crossed his arms and stared down at his father imperiously, deriding him for his lack of culture.



The staring down didn't really work as intended, with him being seated at the table, and Arcturus standing, curiously looking at the food grandfather had prepared.



"I agree with that, really, but the kind of genre you're aiming for is just not for me," Arcturus said, grabbing some fruits from the fridge and walking out the front door. "You need some comedy, comedy I say!" he said as he went.



"You do tend to be overly dramatic, although I admit it can be quite fun when put together with your speeches," his grandfather said.



Lock snorted. "You're all the same, no appreciation for the narrative dictating our lives, no culture. Who will remember something funny happening in a decade or so?" he asked, but continued immediately afterwards, not wanting an answer. "Nobody, that's who. Drama, that's where it's at. No culture, I say."



"Well, I can't imagine remembering much of anything in a decade or so," Abraxas said with a grin, making Lock groan and put his face in his hands. "Being dead and all, you know."



"Grandfather please, dark humour is only funny in hypotheticals," he said, almost begging.



"I don't know. I knew a guy named Ars once. He was a fat magician, with quite the tremendous behind. We all joked about how he'd die one day by catching an arrow with his posterior."



Abraxas stopped speaking, looking up, far into the distance.



"Well, did he?" Lock couldn't help but ask.



"Well no, he was downed via arrow in the... Ars alright, but it wasn't the arrow that did him in. It was the gobble shit spread all over it."

 

[bor902]

Chapter 5

Btw if you wanna be a peep and help me out you could go to RoyalRoad (if you have an account) and rate/review this story. Living a Long Life as a Legend | Royal Road


Abraxas had expressed the wish to take Lock into the wilderness and help him get a few levels in his Assassin class.



Lock was bitter about the nature of his grandfather's wish, but he had been the one to urge one into existence in the first place. And it wasn't like he could tell the man no. It was all very short-term to be honest, but thankfully Grandfather had nothing against Lock needing a few hours to settle his business.



Grandfather had also obviously been planning the excursion for a long time, gathering the needed supplies, and occasionally going out searching for something. Lock did not know what that was, but it had to be something important. The amount of maps his grandfather had revealed to him as he brought up the planned trip this morning had been fairly high.



Lock wished he'd been told beforehand, even if there were obvious reasons he wasn't. Still, he would be gone for several days for up to a week. That was a week's worth of Happy Time he had to brew up and deliver to Shink in very few hours.



The substance in the cauldron he was hunched over started hissing and spitting, signalling that all moisture had been fully drawn from the concoction. It left behind a hand-sized pale yellow brick that Lock pulled out of the cauldron and broke into powder with a mortar. The amount of Happy Time he'd just produced necessitated putting it into an actual bottle instead of the small paper package he preferred using.



A wooden bottle shaped like a flute, mind you. It wouldn't do to get caught at this point of the game. And by god if he had to be paranoid about people using sensing skills to feel an obvious potion bottle filled with an undefined powder on his person, then he would do so.



Lock disinfected his hands and wiped off the sweat on his forehead. There was no point in bathing it all off now, going to do battle in the wilderness as he was. He was going to have more than just sweat to worry about soon enough.



A knock resounded, rattling him out of his thoughts, but thankfully not the the door off its hinges. There was no need for anyone in his family to know about what he was making in his workshop. "I'm heading out to the gates. Meet me there in the next hour," his grandfather said through the door before leaving.



Lock exited the small building and picked up the rucksack that had been left before his door. He didn't bother looking into it as he made his way to the gate, one small detour in mind. He'd packed what he considered necessary and asked his grandfather to put in what he thought Lock needed in addition to that. There would be time later to find out what he had with him.



Lock made his way to Shink's residence. It was a small house in the middle-class part of town with a wide arrangement of greenery filling every part of its small garden. The only thing connecting the mess of plants in any way was, that they were all poisonous.



Lock knocked on the door and fidgeted around for a bit, waiting for it to be opened. He wasn't amateurish enough to nervously glance in all directions and confirm to any observer that this was more than just a housecall between friends. But it was a close thing. The door opened and his tall compatriot ushered him in, giving him a suspicious glance all the way.



"My grandfather spontaneously decided to take me on a training trip. I'll be gone for a week." He fished out the wooden flute container and held it out towards Shink, who took it, a question in his eyes. "This is enough Fun for a week and a half."



"Alright, wait a moment," were the only words out of Shink's mouth. He turned around and left Lock in the strangely homely living room. Lock idly started counting the amount of self-made stitching present. It was the only thing he could really do, unwilling to sit down in the house of someone who he knew to be quite paranoid.



He had gotten to eleven when the older assassin returned, a plain wooden box in his hands. "I don't have enough money on me to pay for that much entertainment. Take this instead." The box changed owners and Lock opened it to take a glance inside.



It was a dagger, artefact grade clearly. It was a hobby of almost every class to gather the tools of their profession, almost religiously sometimes. Shields for Defenders, bows for Archers, and naturally, daggers for Assassins. What he'd just been given was probably a dagger that Shink had outgrown but still kept around for the simple sake of having it in his collection.



"This will do. See you in a while then," Lock said and made to leave.



Shink grunted and gave one last piece of advice as he closed the door behind him. "Don't let the power levelling get to your head. The kids who let it are always the first to have their heads roll."



That was a very good piece of advice.



Lock started walking to where his grandfather was waiting as he contemplated it further. The danger of power levelling was fairly obvious. Knowing his grandfather, that wasn't really his purpose for taking him into the wilderness, but it would be inevitable that he would gain many levels in quick succession when he... killed... him.



The first issue was that the body oftentimes had trouble handling the sudden improvements that stats provided. You couldn't suddenly become twice as strong and expect no repercussion to befall you. The other issue was that fighting for your life while unused to your new capacities was foolish, suffice to say. Adventurers needed to know exactly how their body worked to effectively use it. Knowing when a movement would reach its intended destination was important; milliseconds were important.



That's why it was necessary for a person who had recently levelled up to acclimatize themselves, which was bothersome. If you actually stuck to the job of adventurer, you would probably have to do so several dozen times, if not more.



And the last issue. Arrogance. People born into adventurer families, or even rich families. They were often power levelled. Power levelling was the action of a higher level person bringing a monster to the brink of death, and then let a lower level person deal the finishing blow. This way, the lower-level person still got some experience in their combat classes despite their actual contribution not being very big.



Now, power levelling wasn't bad per se. Someone who had been boosted in such a manner would usually defeat someone who hadn't been, who was a lower level simply by virtue of stats. It only became bad when it got to your head. Arrogance. As Shink had noted, people thought that levels gained with the help of others meant the same thing as acquiring them yourself. But it didn't, did it? It meant not having gotten ones hand on a certain other kind of experience.



Namely, combat experience. It could even be detrimental at times, if the person receiving the boost did not take the time to acclimate their body and elevate their skills to a similar level.

Being very strong and fast, or being capable of throwing a big fireball didn't necessarily mean that one was useful.



For in the end, what was strength, without skill?



-/-



Lock took a few moments to observe his grandfather as he arrived at the gate. An old man, clad in rather out-of-date leather armour, the occasional matted grey steel peeking out from the brown. The buckler on his back was used as a cushion to lean on a tree, a grindstone was used to meticulously sharpen a short sword.



He looked wistful and strangely intimidating for a ninety-year-old man in slightly ill-fitting armour. People were giving him a slight berth as they passed to exit or enter the city of Abrakshana through its gaudy main entrance.



Really, the gate hardly needed to be a hundred feet high and painted in a vibrant green. Lock wondered how often it needed to get repainted and how the hell people were able to pass under it without taking a moment to appreciate the intricate carvings hewn into the arch.



"You're early," Abraxas said as Lock came to stand beside him, still gazing intently at the gate and its surrounding walls. There was an intricate system of houses built into the wall. Well, 'wooden shacks' would be the correct term, all connected to each other with the same wood that made up the structures themselves. Namely shabby, worn, and murky brown.



He glanced at the few ladders and the occasional staircase that let one ascend to the network of slums built into what was supposed to be the city's first line of defence.



"It's very dichotomous, the beautiful gate, through which one can see the beautiful forests that give this country its name. Surrounding it, ugly architecture, clinging to the walls like some sort of parasite." Lock contemplated for a moment, trying to sum up his thoughts in a shorter way.



His grandfather beat him to the punch. "Heretical."



Lock nodded. "Yes. Sullying the greatness of humanity, all that we have achieved, with their ugliness. Throwing away all conflict that Kruto has gifted us with, to showcase that despite all of the pain we went through collectively as a species, that most of humanity is still composed of bottom feeders, herbivores, and simply ugly individuals."



His grandfather raised an eyebrow. "Ugly? I didn't think you'd hold something they were born with against them."



"Ugliness here is not applied only to their outer appearance, but also to the things they bring into this world. The two do have a certain correlation. After all, forming the world around oneself in a mirror image of oneself is hardly pleasing to the eyes of others if the mirror image is lacking in beauty in the first place."



"This is philosophical and great and all, but we can just as much have this conversation while walking. We'll need a few hours to reach the city of Trydan anyway," Abraxas interjected before Lock could continue his diatribe.



The younger of the two nodded. "Did you have to add anything into my pack? I still haven't looked. Feels about the same weight though."



Abraxas snorted. "I removed most of the alchemy supplies you had in there and replaced them with food. Also changed some clothes around. You don't need to dress yourself up all fancy for the monsters."



Lock looked down at himself as they started walking. Steel greaves, pants with shin and knee protectors slapped over them, a long-sleeved shirt, and a chainmail vest that reached halfway down to his thighs. He hadn't put on his gauntlets on yet, they being detrimental to finer tasks such as potioneering.



He turned to his grandfather after they had walked through the gate, having been busy appreciating the artwork during their passage. "What do you mean fancy clothes? I took my most outdated and hideous garments."



He gained a disparaging look for the question. "They might have been your least fancy clothes, but not mine or your father's. They're more rags than clothing and you'll be happy to be rid of them after you get shit all over them. But they're something nobody will miss, and that's what matters."



"I guess. I don't care all too much, I just hadn't thought of asking anyone else for their clothes. Why the food though? Weren't we going to live of the land?" He asked.



"No time. This'll be a short trip for purely combat experience reasons. We can hardly afford to waste time picking berries and chasing deer in the forest."



Lock nodded and they walked in silence for a while before Lock gathered his thoughts and started up the abandoned topic of discussion. "I also disagree with the fact that ugly people were born that way. One might not be aesthetically pleasing, but that hardly means all options are barred for you. Only people who want to stay ugly are ugly and that's a travesty if there ever was one."



Lock started the listing off all the ways ugly people could elevate themselves out of the ditch they were born in.


"Beauty potions, facial disfiguration under the guidance of a healer, bulking up, having an imposing voice, regulating your actions so that you come off as impressive despite an unfortunate appearance, just cutting off one's nose to distract from the rest of one's face, hell just cover up your fac-..."

 

[bor902]

Chapter 6

Abraxas was taken aback after the first hour, exasperated during the entirety of the second, and regretting the entire trip by the third. Thankfully they reached the city of Trydan sometime between the fourth and fifth hour, or Abraxas might have actually despaired at the completely inane topics of conversation Lock was bringing up.


He'd never been a man for philosophy and the arts, and that would hardly change in the one week he still had on this mortal coil. Beautiful things were nice, and you would rather surround yourself with them instead of ugly ones. Any more dissertation on the topic was hardly necessary.


Lock stopped talking about the importance of an aesthetically pleasing place of worship for any religion, comparing it with the proverb of one's one body being a temple, when he glanced at the shimmering lake by which Trydan lay.


The sun was at its high point, having just started its descent, and so the sun rays reflecting of the lake were practically blinding in their luminosity. Small black spots of what must have been fishing boats moved across it, serving as a contrast to the light show. The shanty but warm city next to the lake finished the utterly serene picture along with the surrounding forests.


"It's been a few months since our last visit. I wonder how uncle is doing."


"Do you really need to ask that question?"


Lock shrugged. "I guess not. He's probably just sleeping his days away on his ship while occasionally rousing when something catches on his fishing rod."


"Like always," Abraxas grunted, displeased look on his face.


"Now now, I know that all your children are disappointments, but they wouldn't have made good adventurers anyway if they had gone into it half-heartedly," Lock said chastisingly.


"They would have made dead ones, not a drop of conviction between the lot of them," Abraxas continued to grumble. He seemed not out of breath despite the four-hour-long walk and his old age. Lock was beginning to wonder if his grandfather was actually as frail as he assumed him to be, and if his suspicions were correct and he wasn't, why he was so eager to die.


Lock tactfully refrained from mentioning that the reason why none of his uncles had been willing to become adventurers might have been their father's lacking parenting style. "It doesn't matter much, you have me now," he said instead. Drawing aggro away from the rest of his family.


"I do, don't I." Abraxas smiled.


Lock envied his fishing uncle sometimes, mostly when he was in the midst of more self-inflicted gruelling training or when he was being smacked around in spars. He always reoriented himself back onto his path fairly quickly, though. Fishing uncle might live a relaxing life, but nobody could deny that it was in the end a relatively meaningless existence.


Dreaming big, that's where life was at. Setting yourself on a course, and enjoying the journey.


"We'll have time to visit him though, right?" Lock asked, more for grandfather than himself. While he enjoyed talking with fishing uncle every now and then, this was the last chance grandfather had to meet him before his imminent demise. Maybe even reconcile with him a little.


"Yes. We'll be bunking on his ship today, I imagine."


"You'll talk with him as well, right?" Lock asked, gaining a slightly reluctant-looking nod.


"I won't have the chance for much longer, and," a sigh, "despite our differences, he's still my son."


Lock didn't push any further than that. A meeting was well within his expectation of how far he could push his grandfather. Suggesting reconciliation was a bit beyond his means. The act wouldn't mean anything were it not offered freely anyway.


-/-


They found fishing uncle's ship fairly quickly, as it was quite distinctive with its fish figurehead and bright colour. The lake was small enough that if one shouted long enough, one could be heard even by the innermost vessel.


It took a dozen or so more minutes before fishing uncle made it to the town's pier, where Lock greeted the scruffy but clean man with a hug, and then promptly ran off into town after making sure that 'The Fisher' would stay anchored at the pier until he came back.


Grandfather and fishing uncle had exchanged heavy, slightly scornful gazes as they greeted each other. It was important that they talked; family was important. But that did not mean that Lock wanted the dubious honour of being present for what was probably going to be a very awkward conversation.


He rather preferred taking a stroll through the cozy little town, enjoying the challenge that its uneven cobblestones presented. The architecture was enjoyable as well due to the style and the many colours. Even the smells became enjoyable after he put enough distance between himself and the pier, beset by the everpresent smell of fish guts as it was. It smelled like moss and freshly-baked pastries. The family in charge of the town had outdone themselves with its governance, and it seemed like Trydan became more beautiful every time he visited.


There was no obvious correlation between combat effectiveness and the ability to govern a town, but the Trydan family made him suspect that there was one. Mages were always more intelligent than their oftimes brutish warrior counterparts, he supposed. Lightning wasn't an easy element to master either.


Lock meandered his way to the church of Kruto, thinking all the while of the multiplier he could present to lightning magic users if he taught them the basic concepts of electrical engineering, magnetism and such. He wouldn't do it, naturally. There was no need to show all his cards quite yet. And he wasn't in a position to make himself into a person of interest, anyway. Knowledge could be dangerous if one was not powerful enough to deflect the danger that came with it.


The smell slowly changed as Lock's surroundings turned more and more into a forest. The churches of Kruto always kept their distance from the towns they were bound to. He stopped seeing any people by the time he'd fully stepped on the small forest path. Not that he missed them, mind you, it was just an observation. A pleasant coolness set itself upon his body as the sunlight gradually failed to penetrate the leaf coverage. Sadly, he would apparently not be entirely alone in the church, Lock noted as he came into sight of it.


There was a man leaning against the wooden wall next to the simple little church's door. He looked like a mage, dressed in wide-brimmed white robes with a staff in his hands. The only thing missing was a pointy hat. His posture indicated that he was guarding someone in the church. Although he did not seem overly bothered as Lock passed him and entered the building.


The rusticness stole his breath away, as always. There was just something refreshing about the simple-yet-pleasant décor. So much wood, so many crude carvings, left there by people who had grown from their hardships. There were no seats that one could rest upon while one gazed at the cruel face of Kruto, crucified on a cross, elevated on a podium as the god was.


There was a little girl, about eleven or so, with chestnut brown hair standing in the corner of the church. She seemed to be balefully glaring at him with blind eyes. The floorboards would have been an absolute nightmare to use stealth on, so Lock hadn't even bothered. Probably how the milky-eyed girl had noticed him.


She was dressed in the same way as the man at the entrance. Just without a staff. Siblings? Lock ignored her, gazed once more upon the visage of his patron god, closed his eyes, and started mumbling the usual greeting before one got to the meat of the matter.


"Oh cruelty, I gaze upon thee and wish for your embrace so I might grow, a pleasant hardshi-" before he was rudely interrupted by the girl.


"Why bother? Praying never helped anyone before," she grumbled, as if it was a coincidence that she had spoken amidst his prayer.


Lock ignored her. Annoying children usually left after receiving no reaction. He continued his prayer wordlessly.


"What good are hardships when they're impossible to move past?" the girl continued.


Lock moved her one more step up the annoyance ladder, but couldn't help replying. "No hardship is insurmountable," he said. If a man living in a world without magic could perfect the concept of reincarnation, then a blind girl in a world of magic could learn to see.


The girl snorted hatefully. "You're wrong."


Ah yes, the argumentative prowess of children. "How nihilistic of you. Next you'll tell me that what you do in your life doesn't matter because you'll die at the end of it anyway?" he asked, annoyance slowly turning into amusement.


The girl leaned her head in his general direction, face blank. The gesture probably signalled some sort of disbelief. Leave it for the blind girl to never learn the proper way to signal emotions with facial expressions. "Life has no meaning."


"Of course it doesn't. Nothing has an intrinsic value. It's up to you to give it value." Lock wondered when he'd sunk to the point where he literally spent his time debating children.


The girl grew slightly red in the face, and stomped her foot petulantly.


Lock turned away from her and continued while locking eyes with Kruto on his cross. "Saying that life has no meaning and acting upon that notion is simply an attempt to throw away any and all responsibility one would normally take upon oneself for one's lot in life."


Did the crucifix just move?


No matter. "That's the motivation for discarding meaning, isn't it? The loss of responsibility. Yeah sure, your moral structure has collapsed and you're unable to make yourself do anything useful with your life. But you've made it collapse, since it's a hell of a lot easier than actually acting out your will in the world and trying to move it in a direction that would be good for you."



Was Kruto weeping? Lock was fairly sure that his arguments weren't bad enough to make even statues cry. This required further testing.


"The price you have to pay for that tranquil sense of worthlessness is just some meaningless suffering anyway. You can always find someone to cry with over that, that's for sure. A small slice of martyrdom for the simple act of doing absolutely nothing is quite a good trade all in all."


Lock was quite sure that he wasn't imagining things. The perpetual frown that Kruto wore lightened slightly as he spoke. A bang resounded and Lock whirled around just fast enough to see the doors shake as someone slammed them shut.


Upon turning around he found that the carving of Kruto's face had reverted back to its previous visage.

 

[bor902]

Rate and follow this story on RoyalRoad if you have an account there, would help me out a lot.

Chapter 7

Unedited, halp.




He grumbled disappointedly, he must have been imagining things. The girl seemed to have left during his tirade, was probably the one who'd slammed the door shut, not the damn wind.


Lock didn't know where that thought had come from, it was literally one of the lines in horror B-movies that caused the most deaths. He made to leave, enthusiasm for the church gone, he suddenly turned around and glared at the crucified god.


No movement or unnatural expression. Alright, he must have been imagining things then. Rising levels of annoyance were not something he knew to cause hallucinations, but that explanation was more likely than some divine intervention.


Magic was hard to use in places of worship so that was the only thing it could have been, but while the divine existed, Lock very much doubted that one of them would ever grace him with their presence.


At least at this stage of his life, he exited the church, noting that the mage was gone. Very likely to have been a relative of the blind girl. He idly wondered if he'd made some enemies today, definitely from the girl, you didn't get so mad that you stormed out of a church and bear no grudge whatsoever.


The question was if the girl had any connections beyond her brother, who seemed to be a stylishly dressed if a bit weak-looking mage.


Probably not. This wasn't a genre where'd you get ganged up on by the entire extended family for making their young mistress slightly uncomfortable.


He sighed, wondering what he would do now, the conversation between his grandfather and uncle was probably still ongoing, and his enthusiasm for a church visit had just tanked some major motivation.


Did Trydan have any brothels?

-/-​

It was almost night out by the time Lock returned to the pier where The Fisher was docked. He hollerred a greeting and a gangplank was lowered to let him onto the ship. Grandfather and fishing uncle were seemingly done talking, which was good.


Fishing uncle was also apparently done doing anything really, he didn't even receive a greeting as he walked past the bleary eyed men sitting inside the cabin. Grandfather wasn't present.


Lock noted that there was only one bed present, and a sack full of hey. He stowed away the book he'd bought in Trydan's market place into his bag and pulled out his hammock. Which was at the top, he remembered putting it somewhere in the middle of his large rucksack.


He guessed he was learning new things about camping on this trip. The things you use everyday, like the hammock and food should be on top. Hindsight and being taught is 20/20 indeed.

Though calling it camping was a bit of an understatement, from what Lock remembered of his old world, campers didn't usually face the wildlife in battle, sword in hand.


And even if they did, earth's 'wildlife' certainly hadn't included any death knights if he remembered correctly.


It was more like, extreme camping, yeah.


He rolled his eyes at himself as he set up the hammock. Or just call it adventuring, the actual name of the activity. He sighed to himself. "What a worthless train of thought..."


One of the things he appreciated about this new world was the lack of things trying to take up his time.


Sometimes you just needed time for yourself, time to think and consider, that was hard to reach in a world where there were thousand distractions surrounding you at all points in time. Be they in the form of technology or governments extorting making you waste your life away with their incessant regulations.


His new world was better in that regard, although he would have appreciated regular access to showers and toilets again.


He laid down in his hammock and considered if he felt like burning some of the light crystal so he could read his newly acquired book.


Decision made he stretched out his hand for his pack, precariously beginning to position himself closer and closer to the edge as he tried to reach it.


"Nahhhh." He groaned and pulled back, the risk was too great, he was already lying in his 'bed' so he'd just have to go to sleep.


He'd made his bed, now he had to lie in it.



-/-



Lock backstroked his way across the milky way, it had been shaping up to be a pretty fun dream all in all. First he'd been dumped into the amazon rainforest where'd he'd swam up a waterfall and turned into a dragon. Then he'd flown around the entirety of the world, eating every living thing he saw, until he was large enough to fly off into space, where he once again turned human.


"You seem to be enjoying yourself." A voice commented, and Lock turned around to see a little girl, ten years old or so floating alongside him.


A deadened expression on her face, the shoulder-length black hair contrasting greatly with her almost chalk-white paleness.


Her hair was blacker than black really, it seemed to not only be an absence of light, but something that actively swallowed it. He was sure he wasn't just imagining it, small light motes, flying near and getting extin-.


"Does my form arouse you?" The child asked curiously.


Lock sputtered, while the girl was nude, she hardly had anything womanly about her. But still, being accused of paedophilia, in his own dreams no less...


"Not particularly, no." He managed to wrangle out through the audacity.


The girl crossed her arms and turned her head towards some amalgamation of stars Lock didn't know the name of.


It was a gesture associated with petulance, but the absolutely neutral facial expression turned it into something, else, an empty husk of a movement. The girl quickly abandoned the pose thankfully.


"Sorry if I'm coming off as annoying ." The child said, and bowed slightly.


Her hair was, right in front of him, hanging down her bowing head like a curtain, still extinguishing lights. He wanted to touch it, so he did.


The pretence that he did so under being a head pat that was meant to signal forgiveness. "I forgive you." Lock said, laid down his hand and was ripped from the dream-world to a face that finally showed an expression other than apathy.


Namely eagerness.

 

[bor902]

I'm actually to dumb to copy paste. It only copied half the chapter.
So here is the delayed second half of
Chapter 7 (b)

Lock shot awake and straightened himself almost instinctualy. He had forgotten he'd fallen asleep in a hammock though, thus the gesture earned him a one-way ticket to the floor and a nice little bump on the head.


He lay there numbly, staring at the ceiling of the cabin he was in, feeling the rhythmic movement of the ship.


That had been an interesting dream. The usual reason for getting ejected from a dream was the dreamers death, the brain unable to show what came after, made it wake up instead, unwilling to spend energy on calculating likely hypotheticals.


But right now, he'd only touched a child's hair, unless, had touching the hair killed him? Lock wondered as he looked down at the hand that had done the deed. There was nothing special about the appendage that he could discern, maybe a bit sweaty, trembling slightly.


Glancing out a window told him that it was still dark out, and the overlaying snores only now starting to penetrate into his ears told him that his two crewmates were still sleeping. Grandfather had returned sometime during then night then.


He was sure that If he laid down again and fell asleep, he would meet the black haired girl again.


The question was, did he want to?


Lock chuckled a bit to himself, of course he didn't want to.


Making his way outside he noted that the sun would rise in half an hour or so, the westward mountains were already showing a small crown of lighter purple.


There wasn't much to do on a small ship like this, and he was unwilling to read his newly acquired book about war alchemy by candlelight.


Normally he would start the day off with a swim, but, glancing at the dark waters below dissuaded him from the idea. Who knew what was lurking in those depths, probably nothing, Trydan was close enough to the capital to be termed monster free, but still, what if there was something down there.


So he sat there, taking in the sights and organizing his thoughts. He meditated for a while, and then solved calculus problems in his head for a bit. The mind was just another muscle after all.


The sun slowly rose, and he abandoned a particularly hard calculation to take in its rise in all its majesty.


Steps were nearing from behind him. Very quiet, as if the person was trying to sneak up on him.


"Good morning fishing uncle." Lock said cheerily, not taking his eyes off the celestial body.


A grunt answered him and he felt more than he saw fishing uncle sit himself on the railing next to him, the ship tilted a little bit.


"I have a name you know." The grizzled voice, ruined through copious use of tobacco muttered. Receiving no answer it continued. "What's on your mind?"


"Thoughts mostly, they seem to lean prevalently into the 'wondering about the future' direction at the moment though. I don't even know where grandfather is taking me." Lock was, slightly afraid of what was to come. He'd never fought a monster before, the only combat experience he had was against other humans.


"Well, if there's one thing you can trust dad with its his adventuring skills, it's hardly going to be an insurmountable quest, I even know what you'll be doing." Fishing uncle admitted, trying to calm him.


"Really?" Lock asked, surprised, why had his uncle been told before him? "What is it then?" He queried further while glancing at the man.


He therefore saw the aborted chuckle and the amused look that came into his wrinkled eyes. "Well, I'm the one who found the dungeon you'll be spending your next days questing inside of, so it would make sense for me to know."


Lock blinked in surprise, unclaimed dungeons were rare, and from how fishing uncle was describing it Lock and grandfather would be the first to really explore its depths.


"It's nothing special mind you, a low energy variety one, it would have disappeared in a few weeks on its own, nobody being the wiser. Full of stinking weak Cyclops is what it is." Fishing uncle said with a guffaw, eliciting a raised brow from Lock.


"Weak Cyclops? Run that by me again, I was under the impression that was one of the more dangerous species one could encounter in a dungeon." He said with amusement.


Fishing uncle guffawed again, "yeah, big, mean and ugly is how one would usually describe them. The thing is though, that this particular tribe was unlucky enough to have their dungeon appear underwater, something which Ezili wasn't very happy about."


Lock had to crack a grin at that one, Ezili was the goddess of beauty, sweet water and love. She would understandably not be very pleased by her domain being intruded by a bunch of ugly brutes that were only capable of procreating through rape.


Fishing uncle had laid in a pause so Lock could come to the conclusion himself, and now that he had he made a hand gesture to urge his uncle to continue with the story.


"Well, Ezili wasn't able to just banish the lot, their transgression was only their dungeon forming at the wrong place. But the transgression was still there, enough to justify placing a curse on the cyclops. A small one mind you, but the "Curse of a blinded eye" isn't an easy curse to bear when you only have one eye in the first place." Fishing uncle finished the tale laughing and Lock couldn't help but join in.


That was quite, hilarious really. He would have to make an offering at Ezili's church when he came back from the dungeon crawl, the situation was simply too delicious. The cyclops were even perfect to level his Assassin class on, blind creatures weren't particularly hard to sneak up on, and cyclops were notorious for their bad hearing as well


The only problem could prove to be their sense of smell, but as long as he had enough potions of olfactory invisibility he would be fine.


Thankfully they were too dumb to make good mages, sensing skills were the bane of every assassin.


"How did you determine the energy variety of the dungeon though." Lock couldn't help but ask once he'd stopped internally gushing over the situation that had fallen into his lap.


Dungeons were natural occurrences sure, and everyone knew about them, but fishing uncle was a civilian, he should have no way of determining what kind of dungeon it was.


Fishing Uncle shrugged, "It's underwater, so some of my Fisher skills apply there, I was clearly able to see that the energy the dungeon needed to sustain itself was drastically lower than the energy present in its surroundings. I think anyone could have determined its energy status to be honest, the cyclops are just too weak looking for a significant place such as Trydan." He finished explaining.


Lock nodded, it all made sense. "So how do they look, you've made me curious with your descriptions?"


"Human sized and spindlier than me. Now I'm not a twig by any means, but still." Fishing uncle raised his left arm and flexed it, impressive for an old man, but hardly amazing.


Was it really the correct assumption to make that these monsters were cyclops though? Lock asked himself. Small and thin were hardly attributes one normally assigned the species. Fishing uncle made them sound like a weird race of one-eyed humans.


"They're not humans," A new, much older voice suddenly said, "they're simply a mutation." Abraxas said as he ducked out of the ship's cabin.


"Gerald just doesn't know to mention the properties that make thinking otherwise a fallacy. Like the language that he heard them speak, their skin tone, horns and the ornaments present the cave." He finished, eliciting another shrug from fishing uncle and a apologetic smile towards Lock.


"Yeah, sorry about rambling, suffice to say don't trust civilian descriptions of monsters too much, we don't really know what to look for to identify them."


"It's fine, I got carried away with my thoughts, thanks for catching up to me and putting a stop to it." Lock said with a nod to his grandfather, receiving one in return as well.


He rubbed his hands together greedily, "so? When are we leaving?"


"Now."

 

[bor902]

Writing a lot recently. I'll need a decent stockpile of chapters for all my stories if I want to monetize them for Patreon and the like. This of course doesn't mean that this chapter is long, the opposite actually.

Also need to start looking into copyright.

Chapter 8

They hadn't gone immediately of course, grandfather had sheepishly explained that the declaration had simply seemed fitting at the time. First they ate a small breakfast that consisted mostly of fish that fishing uncle had gracefully provided.


Then they made sure they had all the equipment they needed with them, sharpened their weapons one last time and then they set off.


"You know it would have been way more dramatic if we'd walked there," Lock commented as he leaned over the railing of their moving ship, enjoying the breeze, "being driven there makes it seem like we're going to an amusement park instead of a dungeon."


"The dungeon is on the side of the lake that nobody lives on, you would have spent an hour walking and chopping your way through foliage to get there." Fishing uncle said from behind the wheel, looked to the right and pointed at something at the thickly forested, "like those scrubs over there for example."


Lock turned into the direction and had to smother a giggle as the sole female of the three-man group stumbling their way through the forest, they were going in the same direction as them, tripped and fell face first into a puddle.


"You'll find yourself riding horseback when you move from Abrakshana's dungeon onto the frontier towns, walking everywhere is a waste of time." Grandfather added.


Maybe Lock shouldn't have urged them to reconcile, he was getting ganged up on now. No matter. Outnumbered he may be, but he shan't be out thought.


"I agree that walking may seem a waste of time when one already has a clear destination in mind, but doesn't the act of meandering heighten the chances of noticing things afoul, a dungeon per say?" Lock ended with a question at his uncle.


"He's got you there Abraxas, I didn't find the dungeon while cruising past it, I stumbled on it when I went on land to gather some wood." Fishing uncle said with a chuckle.


A traitor, is what he was Lock noted, changing sides after one rather weak argument. But the tongue wagging of fools often decided the battle before it could even started, as long as the fools were in the majority of course. Very democratic.


Grandfather simply grunted. "Aren't you always talking about the fact that people who don't have clear destinations to strive towards always end up as failures Lock? My my, what a flippant change of ideologies." He said.


"Simply because one is taking ones time does not mean one has no clear goal in mind, it is those who rush forward and think that the initial formulation of their plan is perfect who suffer most drearily." Was Lock's response.


Fishing uncle made a gagging motion, some spit actually flowing out of his mouth and onto his beard., "we're here by the way, if you maybe want to stop your catfight."


While Lock had been distracting himself with conversation they had indeed arrived at the shore of what appeared to be a very small clearing surrounded by thick forest. The clearing consisted of a few tree stumps and just enough space for one fully grown man to lie down and that was about it.


They anchored the ship and took a small boat to shore, where, upon their arrival fishing uncle pointed to a weird rock formation in the knee deep water and rowed his way back to the ship, unanchored it and sailed away from the clearing until he was several hundred feet away from them, and then anchored it again.


"Why did he anchor it so far away from us?" Lock asked his grandfather with a frown as he started disassembling the rock formation, an opening that seemed to lead into nowhere slowly becoming visible.


Grandfather who was standing alert on the dry land answered promptly, "because there is another party of adventurers, or more like bandits heading here and there would be no point in him being caught in the crossfire."


Lock nodded absent-mindedly before he froze up, almost dropping a heavy stone on his foot. He whirled around to glare at his grandfather, who was still vigilantly keeping watch of their surroundings.


His thoughts whirred, grandfather seemed largely nonchalant about the apparent bandits closing in on their position.


He thought back to the three-man party he'd seen on his way here, they had looked a bit shabby even while armed, they'd been young as well, therefore most likely not very strong.


If his grandfather knew they were coming here, most likely for the same reason as them, then there was only one question left to ask.


"So, did you accidentally let slip about a newbie adventurer and his frail old grandfather having found a dungeon in the wild where nobody would hear them scream in a tavern or so?" He asked dully.


Grandfather smirked at him, a proud look in his eyes. "They overheard me talking to myself while they were attempting to steal a horse from the local tavern. A truly tragic occurrence."

 

[bor902]

Chapter 9



Well it was good to know how exactly it had come to this situation, but that did not in any way help Lock with finding a way out of it. Sure the group heading here was apparently composed of horse thieves, but that wasn't really something Lock wanted to condemn others to death for.

Upon meeting, a conflict on the dungeon rights would probably occur. He wanted to see them willing to attack them first for their own gain before he returned fire so to say, but that was a hopelessly naïve approach to a situation that would almost assuredly lead to combat.

"So, what now?" he turned to his grandfather and asked.

Only to receive a shrug, along with a mirthful smile.

Okay, so it was on him then, a learning experience, that's what it was. You're just outnumbered and fighting a foe you had hoped to never have to fight, no pressure right?

"You think they'll try to attack us when they get here?" He asked grandfather.

"Most assuredly, I overheard them talking about how they were going to and I quote, 'Clobber that old fart, whatever crying brat he has with him and take the dungeon for ourselves, we'll be rich, rich I tell you'." Was his, for once overly verbose answer.

Lock rubbed his temples, he couldn't assume that his grandfather was telling the complete truth, he wanted Lock bloodied and ready to take on anything after his demise. This included killing others, he didn't think Abraxas much cared for the identity or possible innocence of Lock's first kill.

It was a very us versus them mentality, just taken further than Lock himself preferred it.

In the end it really came down to the question of whose life he treasured more, his own, or that of the three incoming nuisances. It was an interesting question when taking into consideration his immortality, sure it would suck to have to live through the first few years of childhood again, very very boring, but other than that the only negative thing associated with his death were the feelings of the people who cared for him.

Grandfather would be disappointed, probably throw himself off a cliff at the nearest opportunity, his father and uncles would grieve, Cindy would have no one to give her a thorough fucking anymore, Shink would, have to find another way to earn money. Who would argue with petulant children if he wasn't there anymore!

It was at that point that Lock remembered that the confrontation wasn't a death or death scenario.

If he was uninterested in coming into mortal conflict with the incoming thieves, he would just leave, he would get nothing, they would get a dungeon.

Okay hold up, first, lets get some more information. He turned to grandfather, "when will they arrive?" he asked, hoping to have some time left.

"Five to ten minutes." Was the answer from the old bastard, Lock glared at him for having been forced into this situation.

He pulled on his hair in frustration and emitted a rather unmanly "unngggggg" sound of frustration while stomping on the ground like the perfectly sensible adult he was.

Okay, this was fine, for someone to grow they had to be put through situation that pushed them to their limit. This was just his. A trial by fire so to say, he may emerge slightly burned, but there wasn't really a need to be afraid, inaction was much worse than anything he could actively do here.

"Slightly burned, nothing to fear." He muttered to himself, the idea that the altercation needed to end in death seemed silly suddenly. Unconsciousness and ropes existed, he could just knock the thieves out. Why had he been so quick to come to the conclusion that someone would die, seemed pretty silly of him, he hadn't killed anyone in over twenty years after all. Hell he'd been in a dozen or so fights since being reincarnated, none of them had ended in death, why did he suddenly start thinking along those lines when confronted with a bunch of horse thieves.

He tried to trace the thought back to its origin, and failed. He furrowed his brows, brown eyes gleaming in concentration. It had just popped into his head, that was sus-.

"3 minutes, I can hear them now" Grandfather said cheerfully.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

Okay, okay, incapacitate.

He had paralysing poisons on him. No worries, the might take a while to take effect but he was fairly sure he could keep a bunch of thieves busy for the five minutes it took for them to lose all feeling in the body.

He scrambled up a tree that they trio would have to pass under to enter the clearing from the direction they were coming from. He poisoned his dagger while balancing precariously on a thick oak branch, hidden in the foliage as grandfather watched amusedly. What an inefficient way of applying poison, he would need to look into getting a blow dart in the future.

He turned to his grandfather, made a quiet motion and waited.

He heard them before they even came into sight, although the fact that the forest was bushier than a giants armpit probably made that fact less than impressive, especially stumbling and cursing through the bush as the trio was.

These definitely weren't any sort of professionals, how could thieves be this, unstealthy.

"Can we just turn round already, we've walkin for hours." A female voice complained, and was promptly shut up by a barked reply of a male one, "shut the fuck up already, it's barely been an hour."

Definitely not professionals Lock thought to himself as he tried to blend in with the tree trunk, his stealth skill helped, slightly. Although the fact that he couldn't hear his own breathing could also have been attributed to the fact that his heart was pounding loud enough to drown out the noise on its own.

"Can you two just keep quiet already, I think we've arrived." The third person, a calm male one finally spoke, completing his voice registry of the three.

"Yeah quiet Siron, we wouldn't want to alert an old man and his baby." The angry one replied, this time in a mocking manner.

A sigh, presumably from the one who'd tried to calm the other two down.

Lock quickly assigned them names as they stumbled through the undergrowth into his line of sight, the girl was Girl, the angry one Angry and the calm one Calm. Although girl was a bit of misnomer, looked more like a potato with legs to be honest. Yeah, Potato, even her hair was potato blond.

Angry had what basically amounted to a sharp stick in his hands, while Potato had a club, Calm was the most dangerous one, clutching a bow with an arrow knocked and slowly glancing around.

It was odd, being so relaxed when he'd been panicking not a minute before, but such was life, there were occurrences where you simply could not allow yourself to be anything but composed. So he didn't.

They walked under the branch he was standing on into the clearing, Calm hanging slightly back as expected. They finally caught sight of grandfather, stealthily standing in the middle of the clearing as he was.

"It really was just an old man," Angry chuckled, his intimidation factor heavily lowered by the fact he looked like the average filthy muck haired peasant who'd picked up a stick, "this'll be like taking candy from a baby."

Angry turned expectantly to Potato, urging her on with a small hand movement from behind his back.

"Talkin bout babies, weren't there supposed to be a kid with you?" Potato said, menacingly, ruined by the fact she was a fat filthy peasant, and also had the voice and speech mannerisms of one.

Now that both of them had spoken and were therefore focused more on grandfather than on their surrounding Lock dropped down silently behind Calm and quickly wrestled the other teen into a choke hold.

He was a teen, maybe seventeen, smaller than Lock, probably due to bad nutrition. Small and unmuscular enough for him to simply pick the guy up with a flick of his hips despite the struggling that was occurring and drag him behind one of the trees big enough to cover the slowly losing consciousness body.

Grandfather had impeccable timing and had replied to Potato and Angry just in time for his words to cover up the thump of bow and arrow falling to the ground.

"Youth these days, you know how it is, very unreliable." Was grandfather whimsical reply.

Lock pricked the unconscious body of Calm in the thigh with his poisoned dagger so he would be paralysed by the time he woke up.

"All old people are the same, patronizing old bags of bones, well the tables have turned old man. We might spare you if you show us the entrance to the dungeon." Angry said, very unconvincingly mind you. Also daddy issues, ow.

Lock was actually starting to enjoy himself, mocking his unprepared opponents in his head and executing silent takedowns efficiently.

He snuck up behind the two remaining thieves, his senses going haywire and time itself seeming slowed, he could see every individual blade of grass as it moved in the slight breeze, he could hear the leaves rustling.

A kick to the back sent Angry, who had just been busy brandishing his pointy stick menacingly, flying into the dirt, while his left hand seized the long tangled hair of Potato and pulled her backwards onto the ground.

An odd sound resounded from the direction he'd kicked Angry into, but he didn't let it distract him, Potato fell harshly on her back and he brought his dagger point first to rest at her neck.

He broke her skin slightly to show her he was serious and that she better stay down, but the idiot girls first instinct upon being pulled to the ground and a dagger placed onto her neck was to try and stand up again.

There was some resistance at first, but the dagger Shink had given him was very sharp and pointy, magically so, being an artefact and all.

Suffice to say the neck didn't stand a chance. Lock was still seeing things in slow motion, so he saw in the girls eyes the moment she realized she was dead, and she was dead, he'd been too stunned by her idiocy to retract his arm.

Unwilling to let the unexpected death distract him from the still living/conscious enemy he still had to face, he threw himself into a pitch perfect roll over Potatoes wheezing form and spun around upon landing, drawing his sword and shield in a crouched position.

Only to stare confoundedly at Angry's downwards facing corpse, a sharp stick protruding from the teenager's neck. A sharp stick he'd been waving around just as Lock had kicked him.

He stayed in his defensive crouch and glanced down at Potato, who was just expiring, hands desperately trying to hold the gaping neck wound closed.

He looked at Grandfather, who looked, confused.

"Huh." Lock said.