Chương 45: Forgotten Earring

My eye opens to the flickering of torchlight. Half-healed burn wounds throb over every inch of my body.

"Kevin, don't feel pain." The throbbing fades into an afterthought instantly. I'll never get tired of that. Rising out of bed, I sit up to meet the system screen. [Health: 770(713)] [Mana: 630] [Stamina: 675] The numbers put a smile on my face. Time to finally hit full health. Truly, a momentous moment. My eye closes as I nudge the mana in my body into the healing skill. Every time, it feels like I should be bored with the menial task, but it's so easy to get entranced.

It's impossible to fathom the complexity of my mana veins and the mystical energy that moves through them. The minutes move by peacefully as I keep the guiding touch. Wait, with One Mind/Two Bodies, wouldn't I be able to do this while awake? The thought comes just as the drain overflows, signalling the filling of my health. When my eye opens again, Trouble stands a few feet in front of me, eyes narrowed. I stare back, confused. The hunger and thirst deepen quickly.

"Can I help you?"

"Self-healing? And identify scrambling? It's not my field of expertise, but I'm quite sure there isn't any tier one class that comes with both of those." Suspicion lines the edge of his voice. Crap. I open my mouth, but he interrupts.

"Are you even from a new galaxy? Is this even the tutorial? Or were you lying about those things, too?" I think through all of the possible lies that could get me through this, but I come up with nothing. Even if I could, I would simply be digging myself deeper against someone who has an inconceivable amount of knowledge of the system compared to me. In the corner of my eye, I can see Trouble carefully hiding the rock that sent my danger sense haywire before. My hands go up in my defence.

"Alright! No need for any of that. I was telling the truth about everything except for my class. Everyone's entitled to their secrets, right?" He raises an eyebrow.

"I doubt there's anything in your status that I haven't heard of." I wouldn't be so sure about that. If I'm correct, having a class and a species should be capable of pushing me to extreme heights. Given how long the system has existed, it's safe to say that it doesn't mess up all that often. If Trouble has lived his entire life in such a setting, he would probably find my circumstances less believable than anything else I've said so far. My hands lower slightly as I speak.

"Look, I promise I don't want to do anything to you. You seem offended when I tried to identify you, so that means it's normal to keep your status to yourself, right?" He steps back, clearly thinking to himself. I can feel the relationship degrading in real time.

"Okay. That's fair. But I would rather you just say you would like to keep it a secret, instead of lying to me." He says with annoyance My head goes down shamefully"Yeah, you're right." He nods, and his expression weakens.

"Sorry for pushing you about your class."

"It's alright." … The awkward silence goes on for a few seconds before I get to my feet, edging toward the supply of food in the corner. After a couple minutes of making a fool of myself by gorging on jerky and forcing my head underwater, I stand up.

"Well, I'm going to get back to it. Gotta get stronger and all that." He nods again and sits down.

"I'll wait here and continue studying."

"Gotcha." After picking up my weapons, an idea pops into my mind.

"Yo, Trouble."

"Mm?" He looks up from one of his rocks"Can you take a look at an item for me?"

"Sure!" Excitement shows on his face as I chuckle. Taking off my earring, I toss it to him. Quickly, he closes his eyes, and the earring glows with a grey light a few seconds later. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. He frowns, and his eyes open soon after.

"Sorry, this is enchanted, which is beyond my ability as an engraver. Additionally, it's clearly made by the system. The system has extremely precise knowledge of mana, which makes even the best crafters look like bumbling fools."

"What's the difference between engraving and enchanting?"

"Engraving is usually done in more mundane materials and is mostly physical. Enchanting is done in more mana-heavy materials like mana cores. Enchantments are usually a bit more powerful, with the trade-off of fading over time. But you don't have to worry about that with this being made by the system." Oh, cool.

"Is there anything at all you can tell me about it?"

"The only thing I know for sure is that it uses force mana." I perk up a bit.

"So I can push things with it?"

"Maybe? Force magic has a lot of applications. If this were crafted, I could probably give you an idea of what it does, but the system creates things on a level most people don't understand." I frown slightly as he tosses it back to me.

"Sorry, I couldn't help more," He says sadly.

"No big deal, I'll test it today." He nods and goes back to looking at his pile of rocks. Force mana, eh? Walking over, I push the groaning door open and let warm sunlight in. This time, I close it behind myself as I leave, to be polite. The system screen greets me as I begin my journey. [Health: 770] [Mana: 630(382)] [Stamina: 675(674)] A smile graces my face. Nothing feels better than being full health. Looks like I'll finally be able to test what the earring does.

"Kevin, move perfectly." I pick up my pace and transform a sprint into giant leaping lunges, throwing myself through the air. The increase in stats makes itself noticeable as I toss myself higher and further with every leap. A smile appears on my face, growing into a massive grin. Movement like this takes me halfway to flight, wind blasting past my ears. Far off walls of the giant cavern start to feel far closer than before. The castle in the distance seems far, and would certainly be hours of walking. But now?

I could probably make it there within the hour. With every leap, my metal leggings scream and beg for mercy. They were made for a tank-based hobgoblin that was hardly into tier two. It only makes sense that they would suffer this way. After a few minutes of leaping, I make it to the line in between massive wooden enclosures and the much smaller stone ones. I finish leaping and crash to the ground, legs buffering the landing without error. After a quick spin, I wonder what I should assault first. [5. 01 cycles until next phase] Almost at halftime. It has only been thirteen days since I got here, but it's felt more like a lifetime. The safe play would be to assault the outer wooden areas, but they're starting to get quite big. Near the stone-walled areas, they grow to somewhere between two thousand feet and half a mile in diameter. The inside probably looks something like a city. The Potential rewards make my mouth water with greed.

With the decision made, I walk over to the nearest wooden wall and prepare myself. This is going to be an endurance battle, for sure.

"Kevin, dodge all attacks, and attack as hard as you can without losing health." The world slows down as one mind/two bodies activates, then snaps back to normal as I put my entire mind into controlling my body. Stepping back, I sprint and leap over the wall. As I hit the climax, my eye pops at the sight. At the smaller settlements, the space between cabins was in the dozens of feet. Here, there's only a max of ten feet before you get to the next abode. The cabins cluster together closely, made of two-by-fours.

Streets are lined with orcs, each one not more than a few feet from the next. There's no weapon theme here. Every orc wields something different. I land on a roof, crashing through the thatching and falling through. The small room bursts with dust as I hit the stony floor. There's nothing but a chest and two hay-filled mattresses on the ground. An orc stutters awake, lifting itself up. My arm snaps forward and pierces a shortsword into its eye with no delay.

Chime I move to the corner and kick open a chest that comes up to my knees. Chime"System, get rid of the chime for kills and rewards during this fight." Knowing I won't get a response, I kick the door open and knock an orc down. In a blur, I lunge and slam down with my axe, ripping half of its neck open. My head snaps up and darts around. A dozen orcs within eyesight look at me for a second before pulling out their weapons and rushing. [Orc lv. 14] [Highest stat: Strength] [Lowest stat: Wisdom] [Orc lv. 14] [Highest stat: Endurance] [Lowest stat: Wisdom] [Orc lv. 14] [Highest stat: Strength] [Lowest stat: Wisdom] I keep using identify, but ignore the messages. They don't tell me anything new. My body jerks forward, legs exploding as I fly in one direction. The orcs stumble to a stop in alarm. Curving under, I bury my shortsword to the base into the chin of one orc. My body pulls back as another orc swings a two-handed axe down. My own handaxe comes around in an arc, slicing the front of its neck open.

Without hesitation, I drop the smaller axe for its larger cousin, wielding the massive weapon with one hand. It's so light! I twist around in one smooth motion, pulling the thing with momentum and cleaving an orc's head clean off. The bustle of the street comes to a quick silence. All the orcs and I watch in awe as the orc's body stands for a few seconds, before wobbling and falling over. The sight brings a feeling up from deep inside. Not just satisfaction, elation, or joy. But pride.

I turn on my feet and swing the axe full force, disembowelling an orc behind me. My neck snaps down as a spearman thrusts at me from behind the dead orc. My legs collapse, then slam open as I vault into the orc, slamming my shortword into its neck. Roars echo through the area as orcs call for more allies. I don't stop moving for even a second. The feeling becomes more and more powerful with every orc I kill. Minutes pass with more and more orcs cramming into the small streets.

My body is instinctively thrown left and right, relying heavily on information from danger sense. Still, I can't move fast enough to counter being surrounded by the horde. Cuts appear here and there as I move around like a blender. Several times, I have to pause to wipe blood from my one eye. A level-up hits me, making my body noticeably lighter. The growing exertion rips itself from my shoulders. Loose thoughts turn to instinct as I devolve into a machine of massacre.