Chương 11: Backseat Driver

Despite Alka's desire to put the town that had trapped her for the last three months behind her, the group decided to spend one more night within the town's borders. None of them were in any rush to try and navigate through the snake infested grass in the dark. Especially after Vin repeated how he'd found their fourth member to Samtha's now conscious comrades. Vin and Alka spent the last bit of daylight experimenting with their strange new bond.

First, they confirmed that Alka was still in fact bound to the sword, not to Vin himself. Only when he held the sword or wore it on his person in an empty scabbard they found did she feel the invisible current pulling her toward him. However, something about the act of officially transferring ownership of the sword to Vin had definitely altered how her anchor worked. Before, she'd estimated the area she'd been able to freely float around had been close to a mile in diameter.

Now, it seemed to be about a quarter of that. The only reason she could think of was that her bond felt stronger now, preventing her from traveling as far. Curiously, when Vin held the sword, her natural state seemed to become overlaying herself within his own body, and it took her conscious effort to move back out of him. Vin was mildly creeped out by this at first, however, he couldn't actually feel anything when she did this other than a slight drop in temperature.

And the constant voice inside his head of course.

'You know you blink a lot. You should stop that.' Groaning, Vin tried to ignore his new backseat driver as he carefully directed them all back through the sea of grass. While echoing him, as they'd come to call it, Alka was stuck seeing what he saw and hearing what he heard. But despite the inconvenience, Alka didn't seem to mind all that much.

"I swear I will leave you and your sparkly sword here if you complain about my blinking one more time," he muttered, only loud enough for her to hear. While he could hear her talking inside him, Alka wasn't able to hear his thoughts; thank god. Because of that, he had to be careful when talking to her to make sure he didn't look like a maniac mumbling to himself all the time.

'Dancing Leaf is not 'sparkly.' It's a masterfully crafted weapon designed for monster killing. And I'm just saying, an experienced fighter will take advantage of how often you blink. It's the perfect time for them to strike.'

"Yeah, well it's a good thing I'm not planning on taking on one of those any time soon," he said, pointing out another grass noodle and maneuvering their team around it. Alka had already mentioned offhandedly that those snakes were actually called greentails, but Vin thought grass noodle sounded better.

"Again, I'm an Explorer. It's a support class. Not really built for fighting."

'Everyone needs to know how to fight,' his new morally questionable conscience argued.

'Even if it's not part of your class, you should learn the basics. It will probably save your life one day.'

"In the event that I ever need to suddenly fight my way out of something, feel free to just take me over and go all ninja on them or whatever," Vin said, giving up the argument.

"Just try not to kill anyone if you can help it. I don't exactly enjoy violence." To his surprise, that actually seemed to satisfy her, and she finally stopped trying to pressure him into practicing with his new sword. The rest of the journey through the grass sea was uneventful. Vin's newly improved focus attribute again proved its worth in allowing them to sneak past all the grass noodles lying in wait.

Before they knew it, they'd reentered the rocky, hilly biome he'd started his quest from, and it wasn't long after that that they returned to the village. Someone must have spotted their approach, because when they finally reached the village they were met by the village elder and a crowd of cheering people.

"Looks like you pulled it off," the elder said, giving him a warm smile as Samtha and the other warriors were pulled aside by some sort of medicine man who immediately began giving them a once over.

"Is Olga…?"

"She didn't make it," Vin confirmed, causing the elder to deflate slightly.

"The group ran into some troubles and tried to send Olga back to the village to ask for help. She ended up getting attacked by a venomous snake. Died at the halfway point." The group had actually used Vin's Mental Map to return to the location of her death in the hopes of recovering her body, but something had taken it during the night. There had been nothing left but a few wet chunks of stone armor and some giant claw marks pressed deep into the ground. The group had bid a hasty retreat after that.

"That is a shame," the elder sighed, tapping her stone cane on the ground.

"We will hold a funeral for her this evening. You are of course welcome to attend; however, I imagine you have your own matters to see to."

"Yeah, I need to go report to my own camp. I was supposed to be back before nightfall, so hopefully they don't send their own search party out for me!" Vin briefly pictured Spur leading a squad of people, all hacking their way through the tall grass before being ambushed by a bunch of snakes. It would probably be best to avoid such a situation. Reaching into his pack, Vin pulled out Olga's stone mace he'd picked up.

"I'm sorry we couldn't recover her body. But I did manage to bring back her weapon, if that's any consolation." Taking the mace from him, the elder gave it a weary smile, gently stroking the stone head.

"Thank you. I'll be sure it makes its way to her family. They will be happy to have something to remember her by." Vin hesitated, almost asking about Olga's family before thinking better of it. He'd spotted a few children running around the village during his brief time here. If the elder told him Olga left behind a young child, he wasn't sure just how hard that would hit him.

"Well… I should probably head out," Vin said, feeling a bit awkward. What was he supposed to say? I found your missing people; don't forget you owe me one alliance?

"Before you go." The elder reached into her robe, pulling out something and tossing it toward him. Snagging it from the air, Vin looked down at the small rock he now held. Dark gray just like the villager's weapons, the rock was also covered in a handful of strange, jagged symbols. To his surprise, they looked quite similar to some of the symbols he'd seen carved into a few of the village houses.

"Your actions have certainly warranted an alliance with your people. Or at the very least, opened talks with them," the elder confirmed to his relief.

"However, for putting yourself in harm's way, I feel it appropriate to give you a personal reward as well."

"That is a training rock. If you study it, it will allow you to learn one of our simplest and yet most useful spells: Sense Stone. It may not sound all that impressive, but it is the first building block required to one day learn our more advanced stone magics. I only ask that you don't lend the rock out to anyone else and return it to us once you have learned all you can from it. Creating such training aids is beyond us now after the Great Reset.

While we will return to our former glory soon enough, it will be some time before we can make objects such as this once again." New minor artifact discovered! 1, 000 exp gained.

"Thank you," Vin said, staring at the magic rock in awe. He was blown away that the village elder would be willing to part with something so valuable, even if only temporarily. However… He had no idea where to even start.

"So, I know you said to study it…" he paused, turning the rock this way and that. While there weren't too many symbols across the small rock face, he had absolutely no idea what any of them meant. It was like being handed a complex math problem filled with symbols he'd never seen before and being told to study it in order to learn calculus.

"... how exactly do I go about doing that?" The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Chuckling, the elder tapped her cane on the ground twice in rapid succession. Vin almost swore he felt a small wave ripple through the ground, but it might have been his imagination.

"I see you have yet to pick up the Spellcraft skill," she laughed, smiling as though he'd told the world's funniest joke.

"You can consider this advice part of your reward. The Spellcraft skill is essential for anyone who desires learning the mystic arts, or for those who expect to encounter many artifacts during their travels. I imagine that sword of yours won't be the last artifact you encounter, so I would highly recommend taking the skill."

"Thank you for the tip," Vin said, looking at the elder in awe.

"Did your own Spellcraft skill let you detect the magic in my sword?" The elder gave him an amused look, gesturing toward his newfound weapon.

"The hilt is glowing green." Vin blinked, glancing down at the sword on his hip. Sure enough, while the scabbard blocked the light being emitted by the blade, he'd forgotten that the enchantment seemed to cover the entire weapon.

"Huh. Guess I'll wrap something around the hilt to help with that," he said, his face heating up.

"Don't want to advertise to the world I'm rocking a magic sword now. No need to draw any targets on my back after all."

"Indeed," she chuckled, turning to speak with one of the villagers who then ran off. He returned a few moments later, handing a few thin strips of blackened leather to Vin.

"Use this to cover up the hilt. The last thing we need is for our first ally in this new world to have his throat slit by some hungry pickpocket." Vin gulped, carefully wrapping the leather around his sword hilt until he was certain not a single bit of light was showing through.

'Don't worry, I won't let anyone kill you that easily. It would be really inconvenient for me after all.'

"I appreciate it," Vin muttered, making sure to angle his face down so the elder didn't see his mouth moving. After ensuring the light from his hilt was fully blocked, he bid the elder farewell, promising her that she'd be hearing from his people soon. Asking Alka to keep an eye out for any more of those freaky scorpion things as they began their trek back to camp, Vin followed the elder's advice and spent his second skill point to obtain Spellcraft at level 1.

And then nearly passed out as the System hit him in the head with the mother of all textbooks. Vin staggered, holding his head in his hands as his brain worked overtime to process and allocate the sudden influx of information. Purchasing the Tracking skill had been like suddenly gaining memories of taking a few tracking courses years ago, but purchasing Spellcraft was like having an entire bachelor's degree uploaded into his head Matrix style. It took him a moment to even realize Alka was yelling at him.' Vin!

Are you alright?'

"I'm fine," he groaned, his legs wobbling as he rubbed his eyes.

"Why didn't you warn me about the Spellcraft skill? That was awful!"

'You honestly believe I took that as one of my skills?' Again, Vin got to experience the freaky sensation of someone laughing within his own head that wasn't him.

'For one, on my world it was illegal for anyone to take that skill if they weren't a noble. Not that I would have taken it anyway of course. I used my own points exclusively for combat skills.'

"Why am I not surprised?" Taking a deep breath, Vin shook out his hands and pulled out his newest artifact. Looking at it for a second time, his breath caught as he was nearly overtaken by the stone's beauty. The way the rigid edges of the different shapes bisected one another. The methods the carver used to adjust the angles and account for the curvature of the stone. How the countless vertices overlapped as though it was their destiny!

'Uh, Vin? You alright there? You're looking at that rock like it's a big, juicy steak. I think you might even be drooling a little.'

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he whispered, turning the rock this way and that; the symbols practically singing to him.

"This isn't just magic… This is art!"

'... It's a rock.'

"It's beautiful is what it is!" he shouted, shaking a fist at… himself.

"I had no idea magic was this wonderful!" Not hesitating for a second, he pulled up his interface and dropped all three of his waiting attribute points from his last level up into magic. He had no idea what it would do, but he wanted more. The moment he confirmed his selection, he gasped as his core was suddenly filled with some sort of intangible, refreshing plasma. He could sense its presence filling him from within, but he couldn't really feel it or interact with it in any way.

More importantly, his observations of the stone immediately turned from a passerby admiring the world's finest piece of art to a student learning from a master. Spellcraft increased to lvl 2! 200 exp gained. Spellcraft increased to lvl 3! 300 exp gained.

'Oh God, please tell me you're not about to turn into one of those book nerds I used to pick on around town.' Ignoring Alka entirely, Vin barely remembered to continue walking in the direction of camp as he dove into his studying of the stone. The points he placed into magic certainly helped, but even with his Spellcraft leveling up it was like someone in their sophomore year of college trying to learn by studying a PhD student's thesis.

He could almost understand what the different shapes did and how they worked, but only just. It took almost two hours of careful study, trusting in Alka to warn him if anything dangerous got too close to them as they walked before he had his breakthrough. New spell discovered! Sense Stone. 2, 500 exp gained.

"What the hell?!" Vin gasped, finally tearing his eyes away from the stone as the runic structure and knowledge of how to cast his first spell cemented itself in his mind.

"Spells are worth a ton of experience!"

'Not surprising. Unlike skills, spells don't level up and grant you experience. They are a one and done deal, so you actually get less experience than you would from any single class skill. They're also difficult to find without a teacher and notoriously hard to learn. At least on my world. Don't forget it took you a few hours to figure that one out, and that was from a training aid literally designed to teach people.'

"Good points." Vin wondered how long it would take him to learn a spell from just its basic spellform, or if it would even be possible for him. Realizing he had a couple of System notifications waiting for him, he pulled them up, his jaw dropping as he went through them. Even dismissing the handful of notifications informing him that he'd gained 10 experience for wandering a new mile he had quite a few big ones. Spellcraft increased to lvl 4! 400 exp gained. Spellcraft increased to lvl 5! 500 exp gained. Level up!

Explorer Lvl 5. +3 Attribute points to spend. +1 Passive point to spend.

"Dear God, I need to learn more spells." He couldn't help but laugh, rubbing his hands together with glee.

"Not to mention figure out what new passive to take."

'Maybe you should worry about that after you check in with your camp?'

"Why wait when…" Vin paused, his eyes widening when he realized just how far he'd walked in his magic obsessed stupor. He could make out the edge of what looked like an under-construction campground about a quarter mile away, and he could already make out a few people waving in his direction, clearly having spotted him. Glancing up, he was shocked to see that it was nearly midafternoon; the sun already beginning to work its way back down toward the horizon.

"Wow, I can't believe I managed to walk all those miles without running into a tree or something," Vin said, shaking his head in disbelief.

'I may have tweaked your course a few times here and there. Turns out rather than full on possessing you, I can make slight adjustments to your muscles if I focus hard enough. Figured you wouldn't notice. I can't see your fancy map you have in your head, but I did my best to keep us heading in the right direction.'

"Well it looks like it worked." Sighing, Vin looked longingly at his interface. He had three new attribute points to spend, a new spell to experiment with, and even a new passive to select. However, he'd probably kept Spur waiting long enough. He was supposed to have returned last night after all.

"No sense putting it off," he said, dismissing his interface with one last look of longing. Time to see how his people were faring.