Chapter

Thirty-Two

The next day, Brin had been planning on setting off to fight a monster, but Hogg suggested another idea over breakfast. “I had an idea for how you could knock out those last three points in Mental Control. What’s your background in math?”

Brin wasn’t a huge lover of mathematics, but he’d taken enough to get through his degree. Algebra, Calculus, and Discrete Mathematics. He wasn’t certain, but he’d be willing to bet that was more than they had here. “I’m pretty confident, honestly. Why, can you train Mental Control by learning math? I don’t know if that’ll work for me.”

“Yes. You can also get Mental Control as a feat, for proving that you know it. I have two tests—they should give you one each, but you have to get a perfect score,” said Hogg. “After that, it shouldn’t be too hard to get the last one with meditation.”

Would that really work? If so, this would be the first time he could remember his past life giving him a real, measurable advantage. “I’ll give it a shot.”

So instead of fighting monsters, Brin spent the entire day with a math primer. He was right that math wasn’t as advanced here, or at least that the math Hogg wanted him to do wasn’t as difficult as his university courses. They heavily emphasized geometry and had algebra, which shouldn’t be surprising, since you’d have a hard time understanding the System without even a little bit of algebra, but it never approached calculus.

It was still harder than he expected, though. He had to learn a brand-new notation, and he was using new numbers, and while he recognized the numbers, he couldn’t put them together on instinct the way he could with the numbers he was used to.

The primer went into great depth in geometry, focusing on practical applications. The practice questions wouldn’t simply ask for the missing angle of a triangle, they would ask how to calculate a ship’s location based on its speed and the location of the stars, or how to calculate the height of a tree based on the length of its shadow.

There was also a large emphasis on Newtonian physics. Calculating forces, estimating power and impact. He didn’t miss the implications here. The System did a lot of work in quantifying things like Strength with numbers. This math could help someone figure out how Strong a person would need to be to throw a spear that could break your shield, or how fast an arrow would need to fly to break through a Mage’s barrier. It’s possible that high-level combat had lots of people doing these kinds of calculations on the fly, as hard as that was to imagine. These calculations would especially be valuable to someone with a magical Class. He wondered how much Lumina actually ran the numbers, or if she could just fire her spells off and let magic do the rest.

In his past life, he’d rarely done homework and barely studied for his math classes, preferring instead to procrastinate and then cram at the last minute. C’s get degrees. But this time, he needed to get a perfect score.

He took his time and went over the material again and again, making sure he had each step mastered before moving on. He didn’t get to the point where he felt he was ready by the end of the day, but that was fine. This was the last threshold he could realistically get over, aside from Strong II, and he had the entire two weeks.

The next morning, Davi came over. They went through their usual exercise routine, not that they had any real reason other than habit, since Davi already had Strong II and Brin was hoping the monster hunting achievement would push him over. Hogg had implied that it would, and Brin was counting on it.

Brin made breakfast, biscuits and gravy. They had all the ingredients for it already; it was only a matter of putting it all together.

“I have to admit, this isn’t half bad,” said Hogg.

“It’s good,” Davi said through a mouthful. “But I’m surprised you made this. It’s basically pork yogurt on rolls.”

Brin gasped. “You take that back!”

Hogg chuckled. “He’s right.”

“It’s not even close. You eat the yogurt cold.” Brin spoke with a mournful tone, remembering the trauma of seeing someone eat something really gross. “There’s a solid layer of fat from the pork on top. It’s hard, and you break it up with your spoon and mix it in.”

“That’s the best part,” said Davi. “Although this really isn’t all that bad served warm.”

Brin sighed and took a bite. It was good. They even had a decent black pepper here. He wouldn’t let the unwashed heathens ruin this for him.

“So what’s your plan for today?” asked Davi.

“I don’t know,” said Brin. A person couldn’t do math all day or they’d go crazy. He’d take a break, he decided, and do his homework in the afternoon. This wasn’t procrastinating. This was mental health. “I guess I’ll head into town for a bit. Actually, I had an idea.”

He went back into his bedroom and took out a heavy black sword he’d kept under his bed. A souvenir that Hogg let him keep. He could pick it up with little effort now, though it was still too heavy to be practical as a weapon.

Davi’s eyes widened as Brin returned.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah,” said Brin. “It’s a sword from one of the undead that Hogg killed. He let me keep it.”

It was actually the sword Brin had used to kill a whole team of undead, but telling that story would give away Hogg’s secret.

Davi blinked at it, chewing on his lip. “Everyone’s heard by now that there’s undead out there. And I never heard anyone say they didn’t believe it, Hogg’s not the type to lie about something like that. But seeing a real sword like this… now I really believe it. You know?”

“Yeah. Even for me, it’s easy to forget once I get caught up in the normal routine,” said Brin. “I was wondering, Hogg, did you ever get someone to look at these? Try and figure out where they came from?”

“Of course I did. What do you take me for?” asked Hogg.

“Oh,” said Brin.

“You know what? Take it to Toros. Ask him to tell you what he told me. Davi isn’t the only one who could use a reminder,” said Hogg.

That worked for Brin. His main goal was to have something to do that wasn’t math.

He and Davi walked into town, Marksi darting through the trees nearby. The snake was getting bolder; whereas before he stayed on Brin’s shoulders whenever they left the house, he would now dart into the forest and only reappear several minutes later.

In town he and Davi went directly to Toros’ place. The short, muscular man was bent over his worktable, etching a purple gemstone, his goggles over his eyes. They weren’t the usual black glass from before; instead, they were clear and clearly magnified, so his eyes looked twice as large as normal. The goggles must be able to switch out lenses.

Toros stood when he noticed them enter.

“Davi, Brin, what brings you in?”

“I was hoping you could take a look at this. Hogg wants me to hear what you told him,” said Brin. He put the heavy black sword on an empty worktable.

Toros’ eyes grew more serious, and he stroked his beard with a leather glove. “I see. What do you know about blacksteel?”

“Not a thing,” said Brin.

“It’s stronger than steel, but also much heavier,” Davi offered. “It’s cheap, too, but so heavy we only use it for things we never plan on moving, like stakes for fence posts.”

Toros nodded. “That’s right. Doesn’t hold enchantments very well, either. I can make it easy as pie, but it’s not my go-to for anything, really. Regular steel is better for most things, unless weight really won’t be a problem.”

“For example, if you’re outfitting an army of super-strong undead soldiers,” said Brin.

Toros nodded seriously. “The important thing here is how blacksteel is made. Unlike most esoteric metals, you don’t need a Class to make blacksteel. You can make it by taking regular iron, pounding it into dust, bonding it together with Enfulicca, then pounding it to dust again. Over and over, until it stops being so brittle. Then you melt the ingots and pour it into a mold, shaped like whatever you wish. After that, all you need is a bit of sharpening.”

“To be honest, that doesn’t sound the best,” said Brin.

“It’s not the best,” agreed Toros. “But it’s good enough. More importantly, you can mass-produce it if you have a lot of free, unskilled labor.”

“For example, if you had a giant army of undead,” said Brin.

“That’s the way it looks,” said Toros.

“One last question,” asked Brin. “Can you tell how long ago this was made?”

“Less than three years, I’d wager,” said Toros. “If you don’t mind leaving it here, maybe I could take another look. It’s starting to itch at me that this happened almost a year ago and we still don’t know anything.”

“Be my guest,” said Brin.

They left him to it, and Toros went back to working on his gemstone, but the sword still lay prominently on the main worktable. Brin already knew where he wanted to go next, but Davi might not agree, so he just started walking.

Davi asked, “So what’s that mean?”

“There are two big possibilities for the undead army, and they’re both horrible. One is that some random [Witch] discovered a Burrow City. That means they have millions of undead at their disposal, but nothing else. I think the fact that they have to mass-produce cheap weapons points to that.

“The other possibility is that the undead are from the Queendom of Arcaena. The special high-level troops I saw with the Heroes points to that, but then where are these other undead coming from? And what are they even doing here?”

“We should ask Gustaff,” said Davi.

“Gustaff?” To Brin, the other [Illusionist] was basically Netflix. He’d never really thought about actually talking to the man even though after Jeffrey and Hogg, Gustaff was probably the most well-traveled person in town. “I doubt he’d know anything that Hogg doesn’t know.”

“What does Hogg think it is?” asked Davi.

“He goes back and forth,” said Brin.

They walked in silence for a bit. Past the town square, already back to the regular grassy field.

Davi noticed where they were walking and asked, “Why are we going to the public house?”

“Not there. Next door,” said Brin.

Davi stopped. “Perris’ place?”

“Well, yeah. The caravan just came through town. I want to see if he has anything new,” said Brin.

Davi gulped, then noticeably steeled himself. He nodded, and they kept walking. At the front door, he paused outside and took a deep breath.

“Oh, come on! He doesn’t bite,” said Brin.

“I do!” Perris called from inside. “But rarely hard enough to break the skin. Come in.”

Davi followed him inside, but eyed the adventurer’s tools and armor warily, as if something were about to jump out at him.

Marksi slithered up to Brin and made the hiccup sound that meant he wanted to be picked up. Brin did, but then Marksi changed his mind and leapt over to Davi. Once secure in the larger boy’s arms, he turned to Perris and hissed.

“Oho! Grew some spine, did we? Maybe you’ve got some new skills you’ve been showing off? Well, don’t be too proud of yourself. You’re still only barely useful.”

Brin squinted at Perris. How much did that guy know? Did he know Marksi could open locked doors now? Or was he referring to something else? Perris only crooked an eyebrow, looking back. Well, it’s not like he could ask with Davi here. He’d have to drop it for now.

He eyed the wares as he approached the counter; he’d never been in here with value sense before. Pickaxes, canteens, leather boots, their prices were pretty close to their actual worth. The swords in the enchanted glass case, though, were only selling for about half what they were worth. Being in the frontier really was difficult for those selling high-value goods. No wonder everyone was so anxious to get a caravan here.

Brin put his elbows down on the counter. “So what did you get?”

Perris stroked the polished end of his mustache. “My boy, whatever could you mean?”

“A merchant caravan came through here last week, so there’s no way you didn’t get anything cool. Come on, you old villain, out with it,” said Brin.

Davi looked at Brin with wide eyes, and even took a step back. Honestly though, there was a certain way Perris liked to be talked to, so Davi might as well see it in action if he ever wanted to be able to shop here.

Perris laughed in maniacal glee. “Happy to! Delighted to, in fact. Because unlike you, I had free rein of the merchant’s caravan for the entire duration of their stay. Oh, but not to fear, I’ll sell you what I got. At a significant markup.”

Brin stroked a finger across Perris’ counter, then examined his finger, pretending to be disgusted at the dust that wasn’t there. “I’m sure you heard of the incident that preceded that? Where Hogg beat up a high-level [Warrior]... for me? It would be a shame if something happened to your little shop here.”

Perris tilted his head back as if struck. “Is that a threat?”

“Of course…” Brin let the words hang in the air for a full five seconds before ending with, “...not.”

Perris smiled. “Good. You’re learning.” He wiped a fake tear from his eye. “They told me you were growing up, but I didn’t believe it until right this moment. But enough of that. Feast your eyes on this!”

Perris lifted a heavily gilded glass bottle from under the counter. The green glass held a liquid that looked to be a heavenly light blue, with a label in flowing letters that were hard to read. Quennochet? Guerrochet?

The bottle was impressive, and his value sense appraised it for an eye-popping one hundred and twenty gold.

“That’s crazy. Who would pay more than a hundred gold for a drink?” asked Brin.

Even Davi overcame his fear long enough to step forward and eye the bottle with awe.

“What an interesting achievement you must have, to know how much this costs,” said Perris. “Yes, one hundred and twenty-two gold. This bottle comes from the winery that serves the royal family of Olland, and I promise you this: I’m going to sell it for full price.”

“Not to me. Come on, you know I don’t have any taste,” said Brin.

“Ah well, such is the weakness of youth,” said Perris.

“Come on! Show me the cool stuff!”

Perris did have quite a few new interesting little trinkets. No new weapons, though. Perris wasn’t in the business of buying weapons since Toros already made more than he could sell.

Brin left the store with a bottle of anti-venom, a little enchanted cylinder that could make a candle-sized flame, basically a lighter, and the board game he’d seen the adults playing at the festival. It was called Jogosa, apparently, and Davi claimed he knew how to play.

As soon as they exited the store, Davi looked around, and when he saw they were alone, said, “You’ve been shopping from Perris for a while. Adventuring stuff?”

“Yeah,” said Brin.

“Are you going for Monster Hunter?”

So that was the name of the achievement. Of course Davi would know about it. Was it safe to talk about it, or would discussing it weaken the rewards? Well, probably it was fine to talk with Davi, since he also didn’t have a Class yet.

“I am,” Brin admitted.

“Why?” asked Davi.

“I can afford to, for one thing. I have all Perris’ best stuff, and he thinks I have pretty good odds. I just know that if I don’t take the risk, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,” said Brin.

“And Hogg is ok with this?”

“Hogg could stop me if he wanted to. He knows I’m going to try and hasn’t said anything,” said Brin.

“How are you going to do it? Do you know how to find the monsters?”

“No,” Brin said. “I was just going to set out and hope I get lucky. It might take a couple days.”

“That’s stupid. What if you run into a chimera or something? You should ask a [Hunter] where the weakest monsters are,” said Davi.

“They’d never tell me. It’s probably illegal. They’d go straight to the Prefit, and he’d lock me away until after System Day,” said Brin. “But… you do have a point. They would know. They just wouldn’t tell me. Who’s out on patrol this week?”

“I don’t know all of them, but [Hunter] Tiago is out this week for sure,” said Davi. “Why?”

“Do you know where he lives?”

It turned out, Davi did know, so they went over together. The house was in a narrow corner street, sort of a back apartment that you could only get to by walking through a side street that was almost an alleyway. Brin walked straight by the house, marking it in his memory for later.

It was strange to him that he was even considering this. Hadn’t he felt so guilty last time that he’d ended up offending a god? Only this time was different. There was something in there that he actually wanted. Hopefully. And he didn’t actually plan on stealing anything, just having a bit of a look around. No one would ever know he was there.

He stopped and looked around. It was right in the middle of the workday, about two hours after lunch, so there really weren’t that many people around. Yes, it would be smarter to come back tonight… but he didn’t want to. And this house was in the perfect place for going in and out without anyone seeing.

“Hold my stuff,” he said to Davi before he could second-guess himself.

“Wait!” said Davi.

“Calm down. All you have to do is stand by the street here. If anyone comes by, just say hello to them. I’ll hear it,” said Brin.

“Hold on!” said Davi as Brin pushed his things into Davi’s hands and took back Marksi.

He walked down to the door and mimed like he was going to knock on the door, looking left and right to see if anyone could see him. There was no one around. He tapped on the door, and Marksi slithered inside, then unlocked it from the other side.

Brin walked in. The front room was clearly not meant for visitors. A layer of dust lay on all the furniture, speaking of someone who wasn’t home often, and didn’t do much cleaning when he was home. A pair of gleaming black horns were mounted on a wall, no doubt a prize from an especially hard-to-kill beastie. A skinned hide covered the floor, and the only other furniture was a writing desk made of raw wood. It was extremely rustic-looking, which may have been a deliberate choice, considering how easy it was to get something better around here.

It felt wrong to be in here, in someone’s personal space without an invitation. Wrong, but exciting. No, he told himself. He would not develop a taste for this sort of thing. This was the last time.

Inside the desk, Brin saw a bunch of folded bark-paper letters. He opened one.

Date:

Hunter:

◻ Dense copse

◻ Snake cave

◻ Spinewolf den

◻ Spider nest

◻ Thick brush

◻ Stone dam

◻ Red clearing

Were those locations? He found six papers with the exact same list on them. A form to fill out after a patrol, he guessed. The seventh, however, had a bit more information, written with a different hand.

Date: 8th of Sommerset

Hunter: Tiago

⊠ Dense copse - clear

⊠ Snake cave - clear

⊠ Spinewolf den - 2 spinewolves, pups

⊠ Spider nest - clear

⊠ Thick brush - 3 small spiders

◻ Stone dam - not checked

⊠ Red clearing - clear

Those were definitely locations. They had to be locations that the [Hunters] checked regularly, probably because monsters tended to congregate there. Spinewolves, those didn’t sound fun. And how small was “small” for those spiders? Dog-sized, like the one he’d seen? Hopefully they didn’t get bigger than that.

“Hello there, miss!” Davi said from outside. Too loud. Suspicious sounding. Whoever it was, they got drawn into a conversation with the big lad, but Brin knew he should hurry and finish here.

He had a list of locations, but he didn’t know where they were. He kept digging around, until he found an old piece of bark paper, with some kind of drawing. A map, he thought, but he couldn’t make it out. It had letters in random places. DC, SC, SD—those could stand for dense copse, snake cave, and spinewolf den, but he couldn’t figure out where they were in relation to the town. Then he noticed the only written-out words: “Hogg’s place - avoid.”

If that’s where the hut was, then that meant this part was the town… He had it. He put everything back and walked over to lock the front door. Then he went around back.

This was the risky part, as he had no way to look ahead to see if anyone would see him as he exited towards the sewage canal. He stepped out and looked around, panic rising in his chest—but nothing.

It was possible someone had seen him and simply hadn’t thought anything of it. After all, people didn’t randomly break into houses in the middle of the day, right? So rather than look around and scan the windows, which would definitely look suspicious, he just walked down the canal until he could wrap around to where Davi was.

Whoever he had been talking to was gone, and he was standing at the entrance to the side street, looking flushed and sweating heavily. He sagged in relief when he saw Brin coming from the other way.

“Thanks, man.”

“Anytime, Brin.”

“I know this was asking a lot. I promise I’ll find a way to pay you back. Actually… you could use the equipment I bought just as easily as me. After I get it, would you want to⁠—”

“No,” said Davi. “Not for me.”

“Fair enough. Smart, probably,” said Brin. Honestly, he was relieved. He could risk his own life, but he didn’t know if he could forgive himself for risking Davi’s life.

Now he had everything he needed. As soon as he finished Hogg’s math tests, he would set out.

That afternoon, Brin dove back into his studies. In his other life, he’d sworn the day he graduated that he’d never study for a test ever again. Yet here he was.

It wasn’t miserable work, in fact he felt pretty confident that he’d be able to handle it. But he wanted to be sure to do this right, so he forced himself to concentrate even though there were about a hundred things he’d rather be doing.

He got a notification right as he finished for the night.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Mental Control +1

Nice. He only needed two more, and he’d get those from the tests. No more meditation needed.

He was running out of excuses. He was really going to have to face the monsters, and as much as he tried to put a brave face on it, he had to admit it: He was stalling. There was no reason he needed Mental Control before he fought monsters. It just gave him something else to do while he put it off.

A coin-flip—that was what Perris had said. A coin-flip, with his life on the line. A fifty percent chance that he’d come out of this alive with a shiny new achievement, and a fifty percent chance that he’d die. What kind of idiot took those odds?

Even stupider was the fact that he knew he was going to do it. He didn’t want to call it fate; there was no invisible hand pulling him there. It was only that he knew himself. He knew he wouldn’t be able to talk himself out of it. What were all those hours spent working twice as hard as everyone else, if not for this? One more day, and he would conquer or die. Either way, he wouldn’t have any regrets.