<table width="624">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Name:
</td>
<td width="156">
Jarek
</td>
<td width="148">
Level:
</td>
<td width="164">
18
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
HP:
</td>
<td width="156">
28/28
</td>
<td width="148">
Physical Defense:
</td>
<td width="164">
16 (+2)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Strength:
</td>
<td width="156">
20 (+2)
</td>
<td width="148">
Mental Power:
</td>
<td width="164">
11
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Dexterity:
</td>
<td width="156">
10
</td>
<td width="148">
Agility:
</td>
<td width="164">
10 (+4)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Perception:
</td>
<td width="156">
20
</td>
<td width="148">
</td>
<td width="164">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Mana Pool:
</td>
<td width="156">
41 (+1)
</td>
<td width="148">
Mana Regeneration:
</td>
<td width="164">
20 (+3)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Available Points:
</td>
<td width="156">
0
</td>
<td width="148">
Coins:
</td>
<td width="164">
0
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Class:
</td>
<td width="156">
Mana Modulator (D-rank)
</td>
<td width="148">
Profession:
</td>
<td width="164">
Rune Master
(E-rank)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Titles:
</td>
<td colspan="3" width="468">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Skills and Spells:
</td>
<td colspan="3" width="468">
Identify (E-rank)
Mana Modulation (D-rank Core)
Death’s Defier (A-rank)
Mana Sensing (E-rank)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Affinities:
</td>
<td colspan="3" width="468">
Internal Mana (D-rank Low), External Unattributed Mana (E-rank Low)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="156">
Equipment:
</td>
<td colspan="3" width="468">
Mana-infused Knife (F-rank): +1 Mana Pool, +1 Mana regen.
Orc Helmet (F-rank): +2 Physical Defense
Magician’s Robes (F-rank): +2 Mana Regeneration per minute.
Orc Boots (F-rank): +2 Agility
Orlan Blade (E-rank): +2 Strength, +2 Agility
Interdimensional Pouch (E-rank):
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
I woke up leisurely, which in retrospect was somewhat surprising.
What happened to monsters taking over the world? I asked, as I opened a can of tuna for breakfast. My fridge—and all the food inside it—was gone. It was a weirdly incongruous feeling, walking towards my fridge in the morning, reaching out my hand towards the door habitually, only to realize it wasn’t there.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
<There are thousands of monster species, and thousands of dangers that your world is facing right now. The general rule of thumb is that if a danger takes a while to manifest, that’s because it is building its strength. Often, it is the slow-acting ones that cause the most damage, unless people act quickly enough and eliminate them right away. If you want to play the hero, I would recommend at least scouting to see what is going on in this District.>
Alright, I thought back, chewing a forkful of tuna. It was a minor convenience, being able to communicate and eat at the same time. We can scout as we move towards the nearest town.
I cast one last glance over my apartment. I wasn’t attached to the space. I was probably forgetting to bring something, but I’d just have to live without it.
I locked up and walked through the hallway towards the exit.
I could hear soft sounds inside various apartments. Presumably, most people were still hiding away in their apartments.
It made me wonder how long that could last. From what Samantha had told me, there would be increasingly difficult waves of monsters to overcome. Only the people who raised their levels on the first few waves would stand a chance surviving what was yet to come.
I probably cut an incongruous figure, wearing an orc’s helmet, blood-stained magician’s robes, heavy boots, and holding a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Slung over my back was my backpacking backpack.
The streets were empty. I couldn’t sense any danger, and I couldn’t see any people. It was eerily silent.
I took out my compass, which would point me to the nearest town. When I’d woken up this morning, it had shifted to point to the north. Following Samantha’s advice, I spent some time walking in a line perpendicular to the direction of the nearest town.
Samantha promised that she would be able to estimate the distance of the nearest town this way. If it was too far, it would be more efficient for me to find a way to create my own town.
It seemed we were lucky, though. After about ten minutes of walking, Samantha assured me the nearest town was less than a day’s journey away.
I encountered a few scavengers as I jogged through the streets. People raiding grocery stores glanced up and stared at me, but I didn’t bother talking to them.
I even saw some people who had probably been through the tutorial. People wearing armor, holding weapons, roaming the streets and stealing food.
It was concerning, not finding a single monster nearby.
<There! Try to catch it!> Samantha highlighted something in my vision. It looked like a mouse the size of a backpack.
I rushed towards it, but the creature sensed me immediately and dove into an open manhole.
<Well there’s our answer about what’s going on here,> Samantha said. She sounded excited. <It’s a Hyron Vole. Which means the real danger is Hyron Moss. Think of it like terraforming. Hyron Voles and Hyron Moss have a symbiotic relationship. Hyron Moss can gain energy from virtually any organic material. It’s possible for whole planets to be consumed by that stuff. The Hyron Voles help spread the moss, and the moss helps feed the voles. You’re lucky, actually, that something like this appeared in the middle of a city, and not in the wild.>
I felt a shiver travel through my spine, as I imagined all of the earth covered in moss. Isn’t this just the first wave though? Shouldn’t it be easy to defeat?
<It is…strange… that Hyron Moss would appear here,> Samantha said. <But at this point in its development, it will actually be incredibly weak. The moss can only reproduce from one central location. Kill the nucleus, and everything else is just poisonous moss that will die eventually.>
What would it take to defeat it?
<Really, all you have to do is find it. Now that we know what to look for, you can focus on the sense of smell. The moss has a distinctive smell, you see, due to the poison it releases. You’ll probably be swarmed by voles, but they are low-level enough you should be fine. Your Constitution should be high enough to trump the poison, at this stage in its development at least.>
I felt a headache growing. Fighting moss had been the last thing on my agenda when I woke up. Alright. How do I find this thing?
<hr>
Compared to the tutorial, I couldn’t help but curse the inefficiency of leveling back on Earth.
After an hour of wandering, I felt like I had finally caught the bitter, poisonous scent of the Hyron Moss.
What used to be a grove of trees near a park was now a small grove of trees covered in dark green moss. I found a group of trees that weren’t covered in moss, climbed one, and settled in for a long wait.
<Think of the moss you see as a mining outpost,> Samantha said. <The moss draws energy from nearby organic material, and stores the energy as mana in Mana Beads. Then, the Hyron Voles will dig out the Mana Beads, and take them back to the Hyron Nucleus. This allows the Hyron Nucleus to grow and produce more spores at a faster rate.>
<In fact, you can think of the whole system as something of a mana generator. If you’re open to it, I would recommend saving the nucleus. You can take over the role of the voles, and you would only give the nucleus the minimum number of beads it needs to survive. You could become the owner of a mana farm, basically. It’s like printing money.>
I snorted mentally. And meanwhile, there would be a poisonous moss killing people and terraforming Los Angeles. It sounds like you’re trying to turn me into an evil overlord or something. It’s not going to happen.
<It’s not evil,> Samantha started, then paused. <Alright. I can see how people might get hurt accidentally, and it would be a lot of annoying work to prevent that. If you’re that set against creating your own farm, then I still recommend sparing the nucleus. You can make a ton of money if you sell it to the shop at the nearest town. Live Hyron Nuclei are incredibly valuable and hard to get a hold of. There are people in Acclimated Worlds who are better equipped to carefully maintain Hyron Moss.>
I feel like we’re counting our chickens before we hatch, here, I thought back. It’s not like we have access to the nucleus now…
We went back and forth for a while, and then I finally caught sight of an approaching Hyron Vole.
It sniffed the air cautiously, approached the moss, and started digging gently. The vole avoided damaging the moss as much as it could, but it still managed to uproot a Mana Bead—a small ball of hardened mana about the size of a bumblebee—which it promptly ate.
Then the vole moved onto another section of moss and repeated the process.
Once it had three beads in its stomach, the vole scurried away.
Rather than chase it, I followed carefully from a distance, focusing on the acrid scent that the vole left.
Another strike against your farming idea, I told Samantha. I don’t think I could stand dealing with this stench on a regular basis.
<You’d get used to it. And if it bothers you too much, I can always switch up some receptors in your brain. I could make the poison smell like citrus,> Samantha offered, without a hint of sarcasm.
Fuck you, I shot back, feeling a rush of panic and adrenaline. Samantha already had messed with my brain. Images flashed through my mind. Goblin corpses. My whole body covered in blood. My dismembered left arm, which I treated like a papercut--
I felt my breathing grow more frantic, and Samantha immediately spoke up again.
<Hey, it''s alright,> Samantha said, slowly, soothingly. <That joke was in poor taste, I''m sorry. Just focus on your breathing.> As Samantha spoke, I could feel myself relaxing. The visions of violence were still there, in the corner of my mind, but they felt more distant, less visceral.
I took a breath.
Anyway, I continued, If you’re ever going to say something that sinister, you should at least sound the part. Why not change your voice to an evil villain’s voice—Try Emperor Palpatine, or Darth Vader.
<I’m fully capable of changing my voice,> Samantha said, in her same sickly sweet tone. <But my tone is one of the few parts of my identity, since projecting an avatar would be a waste of mana. It’s rather rude of you to ask me to assume someone else’s voice. It’s like if I asked you spend your days cosplaying as Padme Amidala.>
Couldn’t you at least throw in an evil cackle every now and then?
<I’ll take it into consideration,> Samantha said, primly.
It wasn’t long before we found the Hyron Nucleus’s lair.