Chương 4: Finally, EXP!

The Shadefall Training Grounds had stood at the edge of the Thornwood for two hundred years, maintained by the Adventurers' Guild as the safest place in the kingdom for new recruits to earn their first kills without accidentally dying. The monsters here were carefully curated. The undergrowth was cleared. There were even small wooden signs pointing toward the easier encounters, in case a first-day adventurer needed guidance finding something to stab. The toadstool people occupied a clearing near the eastern path.

There were seven of them. Knee high, red-capped, with small furious faces that suggested they had been personally wronged by the universe at some point in the distant past and had never recovered. They were ambush predators by nature — or so they believed. In the wild, toadstool people were patient, clever, and genuinely difficult to spot among the forest undergrowth. The Academy's breeding program had ensured that none of those toadstool people ended up here.

The Shadefall specimens were a carefully selected lineage bred specifically for high-visibility training encounters, their caps a bright, vivid red that stood out starkly against the vegetation. They did not know this. They crouched behind a mossy log in what they considered expert concealment, vibrating with the anticipatory fury of predators about to spring, furious faces pressed low, absolutely certain the element of surprise was theirs.

Every adventurer who had ever come through this clearing had seen them before reaching the wooden sign. They fought with their teeth. They were, in the formal classification of the Guild's monster registry, three full tiers below a goblin. A first-day adventurer with a pointed stick and minimal self-belief could clear this encounter before breakfast. [SYSTEM LOG] ──────────────────────────── — NOTE — Seven targets. Stationary. Visible from fifty feet. Combined level total: 7. We are asking for seven kills. Seven.

They are right there. Please. Please kill the toadstool people. Please. The contraption had been assembled over two days from a pack animal's harness, a saddle cushion, three mismatched buckles, and what appeared to be a significant amount of optimism. It sat across the zombie's shoulders and upper back, distributing Fenwick's weight with reasonable reliability, held together by straps that creaked with every step. The positioning had been Fenwick's idea. At shoulder height, he was outside the bite radius.

This had not been a theoretical consideration. Next, they had to figure out a way to stop the hero from trying to eat him whenever he wasn't riding the harness. A spell cast by the clergy of the Order gave him protection from zombies. It needed to be recast each morning, but at least it kept Fenwick from looking like lunch. The Order had rented out the entire hunting grounds for the foreseeable future.

With the coffers empty from the summoning, favors and enchantments had been promised; this gave the Order some time to train up the hero in relative peace. The smell at shoulder height was considerable. They had tried a cantrip first. It had lasted four seconds. Nibbles had personally assisted with the research that identified Flower Scent, a newly invented first-level spell, as the only viable alternative, meaning the solution was now documented in the Order's official records. Fenwick renewed it every morning.

It cost him a full spell slot. He was a Level 3 wizard burning prepared magic on an air freshener. At the same time, seven killable creatures sat thirty feet away, and somewhere in the church library, there was a formal notation about it. He sat with both rear paws braced against the back of the harness, one paw gripping a strap, the other currently holding an acorn. Below him, slightly to the left, the glowing screen drifted at its usual position above the hero's head.

From this angle, Fenwick could see it clearly. He had been watching it for three days. He had begun to understand some of it. Right now, it was showing a small animated figure running toward a cluster of red-capped shapes in the middle distance. The toadstool people stood in their clearing, furious, waiting. Fenwick threw the acorn. It struck the nearest toadstool person on the cap with a hollow knock.

The creature turned, located the source, determined it was not worth the effort required, and returned to a crouch. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The Hero had not looked up. Fenwick reached into the small bag tied to the harness beside him and retrieved another acorn. Above the Hero's head, the screen cycled through its sequence again. Running figure. Red-capped shapes. Arrow. Large, encouraging flash of gold light.

"Come on," said Fenwick quietly, to nobody in particular. He threw the second acorn. This one struck the log. Two of the toadstool people turned. Their faces cycled through their usual range of expression, which began at furious and ended at furious by way of furious. They bit the log twice and returned to standing. The zombie's head had not moved. The screen shifted. The running figure was replaced by a larger figure, arms wide, beckoning. Then a sequence of gold stars. Then the running figure again.

Fenwick had watched the system work through its entire visual vocabulary over the past three days and had begun to feel a certain sympathy for it. It was doing everything it could with very limited materials. He reached for a third acorn. Then the zombie moved. Not toward the toadstool people. His head had turned, slowly, tracking something at eye level. Something small.

Something moving with the drifting randomness that small moving things had, crossing the clearing in a lazy arc, completely indifferent to the significance of the moment. A butterfly. It was yellow. It was the approximate size of nothing important. It passed directly between the hero and the toadstool people, which was the only interesting thing about it, and drifted toward the eastern treeline. The screen erupted.

Warning Warning 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 The dancing figures appeared, more of them than Fenwick had seen before, pointing with aggressive unanimity toward the toadstool people. Red symbols cascaded past. A large X appeared over the butterfly. The Zombie took a step toward the butterfly.

"No," said Fenwick. The Hero took another step.

"No, no, no." Fenwick gripped the strap. The harness creaked.

"The mushroom people. Look at the mushroom people." The Hero was not looking at the mushroom people. He was picking up speed, which for the zombie meant a slightly more purposeful shamble, his bare and booted foot striking the ground in their uneven rhythm, his arms beginning to rise with the reaching quality they took on when something had his attention. The toadstool people receded behind them. Several of them bit the air, apparently in a general protest. The butterfly drifted on, unhurried, toward the trees.

The screen had gone the shade of red that Fenwick had come to associate with peak system distress. The dancing figures had stopped dancing and started running, tiny arms above tiny heads. One single image appeared, held for a long moment. A butterfly. Then a large red X. Then a toadstool person. Then a gold star. Then, after a pause that felt almost exhausted, the butterfly again. Then the red X. The Zombie lunged. The harness swung violently. Fenwick made a sound and grabbed both straps.

The contraption held, which was more than it deserved to. The Hero's hand closed around the butterfly with the same loose, drifting certainty he'd applied to everything else that had gotten close enough to reach, and then he stopped. He looked at his hand. He opened it slightly. He ate the butterfly. The forest was quiet. From somewhere behind them, faintly, came the sound of seven toadstool people being furious about something. Above the Hero's head, the screen was still. No emojis. No dancing figures.

Just a single blinking cursor, as though the system was composing something and had not yet decided what. Then: ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── 🎉 Just the one. ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── +0. 0005 XP NEW CREATURE KILL: x2 bonus applied TOTAL XP GAINED: +0. 001 Current XP: 0. 001 / 100 Fenwick stared at the notification. The notification stared back.

"We are," said Fenwick, to no one, his white paw still gripping the strap, the harness still creaking, the toadstool people still furious in the distant clearing, "going to be here for a very long time." ⟨ [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── [Entry 4] Day 4 in the fantasy realm. He ate a butterfly. New creature kill bonus applied. 0. 001 XP. The small wizard said we are going to be here for a very long time. He is not wrong. But he caught it. He saw something moving, and he caught it.

That is not nothing.