And To It We Return

“Hey, mom?” I said, joining her in the kitchen as she idly washed the dishes.

“Hm?” My mother, Marianne, turned towards me slightly, lifting an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“I, uh…” I scratched my cheek as I frowned slightly. “Well, I guess I’ve been wondering about something for a while- I figured you’d know something about it.”

“Yes?”

“Erm... Intelligence or Wisdom- which would you consider more important?”

She paused, setting the plate she’d been cleaning down to turn towards me.

“I’m not sure I understand the question,” she said, visibly confused. “Where’d this come from?”

“Well,” I began, wondering about that a bit myself, if for different reasons. "You know how in RPG's the basic stats are all different; Strength is power, Dexterity is speed, Vitality is toughness, and Luck is your level of fortune... Well, Intelligence and Wisdom don't seem to match up with that, and when I realized that, I started to think of whether they were different in the real world, too, and how."

She seemed to ponder that for a moment.

“Well, I suppose you’d want both, really,” she said. “Just how it’d better to be strong and fast and tough and lucky, rather than just one in particular, but that’s very rarely an option. If I had to say which was most important… I suppose I’d say Wisdom.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well… If I was to define the two, Intelligence would be your mental power- your IQ- whereas Wisdom would be the ability to interpret what you know. If you’re smart and have a thousand ideas, Wisdom would tell you which was the best choice to make and what would happen as a result of it.”

I nodded, a broad grin forming on my face. “Then I’ll make sure to become wise, just for you.”

Mom put a hand to my cheek and returned the smile.

“Oh, Draga,” she said. “You have more than enough time to become whatever you want.”

“Thanks, mom,” I said sincerely. “Then… I promise I’ll become someone great. And, uh, why don’t I handle the dishes?”

At that, her eyebrows went up again before she chuckled and nodded.

“I’ll leave it to you, then,” she said, patting my cheek again as she turned away. I stared after her for a moment.

LVL?

Marianne Konungur, ?

I sighed and turned to the dishes, washing them one by one.

Through repeated action, the skill [Dish Washing] has been unlocked!

I just sort of… stared at the black box that appeared before my eyes for a moment.

Then I sighed, shaking my head.

Of course.

How was I supposed to explain this? Our world was full of strange and bizarre magic, incredible technology, and this was none of that.

It was just a game.

And I had become a player.

“Status,” I muttered to no one in particular.

Name: Draga Konungur

Class: The Gamer

Title:

Level: 2

HP: 100

MP: 50

Str: 10

Vit: 10

Dex: 10

Int: 10

Wis: 10

Luk: 10

Points: 5

Height: 5′10″

Weight: 152 lb.

Money: 2000 Pencel

This window appeared in front of me at the sound of my voice. I’d confirmed I was the only one who could see it by opening it repeatedly in a crowd and not drawing any attention.

Initially, I’d wondered if I was just seeing things, but…well, I had an Inventory, too, and I could literally store stuff inside of it and they’d, well, vanish until I took them out.

Hell, I could store more stuff in there then I could physically carry.

There were even quests, though they were all stuff like ‘Set the table,’ ‘Take out the trash,’ and ‘Go get groceries.’

Despite that, they gave me experience points and, yesterday, I’d even leveled up and gotten points. Given the circumstances, I was willing to operate under the assumption that would work like in a game, too.

Which had led me to the question I’d asked my mom. My stats were… average. Perfectly so—I wasn’t good or bad at anything, for someone of my level, but I had figured out pretty quickly that I was low leveled.

Most of the people my age had levels like three or four, but I’d started at level one with completely normal stats. It had been kind of depressing to have that thrown in my face.

I’d gone to sleep, woken up, and I’d been like this, which simply showed off how weak I was.

It really didn't help that I'd gotten it the day after I got rejected from Grove.

Again.

But now, if I had this ability, if it worked how I thought it did, then maybe I could change that. I was sure of it, now—I could do things no one else could do.

I had five points right now and I could put them anywhere I wanted. I could make myself stronger, faster, or anything else. Given the raw potential held in these little numbers on my, well, character sheet, it was only a matter of choosing properly to gain strength.

I had no idea how to do that. I’d considered all my options. I wasn’t sure exactly how the numbers worked, but I could become the strongest of my peers in a snap of my fingers by putting them in strength or the fastest by placing them in dexterity.

But which was most important? Being strong? Fast? Tough? I’d considered it, but after sleeping on it, I realized I just didn’t know. What’s the best choice? Where do I even start?

And then I realized, if I didn’t know that, wouldn’t making myself smarter and wiser be the best choice? And if Wisdom is the ability to make good choices, then…

I pressed the arrow beside Wisdom five times and raised it to fifteen. Taking a deep breath, I nodded and closed the window.

“I’m done with the dishes, mom!” I shouted. “I’m going out for a bit!”

I organized my thoughts, putting what I already knew in context.

I was, essentially, a video game character. I could grow stronger by leveling up—whether that was my own, personal level or the levels of my skills. From what I’d seen, doing one didn’t affect the other, so I had to improve them separately. I already knew how to do both, I’d just been uncertain as to how to go about it.

Improving my skills was as simple as using them. That in mind, I moved into the forest, took my weapon out of my Inventory.

Everyone in this day had custom weapons made for them- everyone but me, that is.

Long ago, in a time before people actually kept track of dates, there were four Beast Kings.

They were mighty people- a group capable of stopping any conflict with their mere presence.

But, as society developed, the need for their presence gradually waned, until the group eventually disbanded.

Without a proper wielder, their weapons had fallen into the hands of effectively random people.

Including myself.

I held the Vier Klau, a gauntlets with clawed fingers which were once able to slice through virtually anything.

But, as I proved a moment later, it struggled to dig into trees with me.

I’d been doing this rather frequently as of late, once I’d developed my [Claw Mastery] skill specifically, with the thought going that I could eventually tap into its former glory.

Yeah, right.

But, it was still a pretty useful thing to do. Thanks to its presence, I'd managed to give myself a general goal: level up my current skills and unlock more of them.

Any combat skill would be more than what I have now anyway.

I’d gotten [Power Strike] around the same time I’d gotten [Claw Mastery]. I could use the former exactly ten times before I ran out of mp, after which it took about an hour to regen it.

It had taken me about two hours to increase it to level two, and longer to raise it to level three, entirely because of how long it took to regain my mp.

In comparison, I’d been able to raise my Sword Mastery to level five in a single day because I didn’t need mp to use it.

From that I could assume that passive abilities were easier to improve then active ones, as well as easier to use, but also were weaker on their own while active skills got both stronger and cheaper as they gained levels. Essentially, I needed to get many passive abilities that worked well together while simultaneously training my active abilities.

On the other hand, raising my own level was just as important, because it gave me points to improve my stats.

Unfortunately, there were only a few ways to do that—doing quests was the only big one I’d done, though I could get a small bit of experience by studying and working out.

But, if I thought of the world as a game, then presumably I could also do it by killing monsters and defeating enemies.

Generally, quests gave more experience than monsters in return for increased complexity and time cost. That all depended on the difficulty, though, and I reasonably assumed that taking out the trash gave less experience then killing a Hokori.

If I could do it, finding an area full of Hokori and killing them all would probably be the faster way to level up, and places like that were easy to find.

I could just leave the city boundaries and I’d find them eventually, though the forests close to the residential district were safe.

But…

I was still only level two, and there was no way of knowing what I’d find. Getting stronger first was probably the wiser choice, as was sticking to quests for now.

Then… could I manufacture quests? If I could get five hundred experience from just doing things like doing chores for my mom, could I volunteer for tasks and do things around the neighborhood? Or did someone have to explicitly ask before I could do something?

I’d have to find out. Even if I couldn’t, there had to be a fair number of people who needed stuff done around town.

Then, that’s where I should start, at least in terms of leveling myself up. Skill wise... A schedule should be more than enough.

Besides Power Strike and Claw Mastery, I didn’t have many other skills. I’d gotten Observe while watching the higher-level people I’d seen around town and the fights I occasionally saw.

And, of course, I’d gotten Dish Washing just a while ago, but I think I could exclude that from my list of ‘Important skills to grind.’

Observe, however, seemed like the type of thing that could be extraordinarily useful. Even at level one, it showed me a lot about whatever I used it on.

It was an active skill, but it didn't cost anything. Then, if I were to use it on every person I met—no, on everything I saw—I should be able to improve it at a decent rate, right?

Did the level or value of the object matter? If it did, I could use it in stores and stuff, and places like that would also have lots of stuff to use it on. A library might be a good place to use it, too, if every single book counted.

I could use that whenever I was in the city and I could spend a few hours wandering every day, maybe doing some quests in the process. My Claw Mastery and Power Strike I could train later on, like I was doing now. That would serve to level my existing abilities. As for acquiring new ones…

Dish Washing served as a reminder of how broad ‘Skills’ could be. If I could get a skill by doing chores, what else would count? Claw Mastery implied that I could get a similar ability with other weapons.

It might be more efficient to stick with claws for now, at least in terms of melee, since I’d already put some work into it—but it might be smart to get a longer-range option at some point and maybe see if my hands counted as weapons, just in case.

In fact, was there an Armor Mastery? Shield Mastery perhaps?

I didn't one just by wearing a shield or the gauntlets, but then I hadn’t gotten Claw Mastery until I started using them on trees. There wasn’t anything nearby to attack me, but… would it count if I bashed something with my shield? It was something to look into, at least.

Besides that, there were a bunch of things that probably counted. Sneaking around probably counted and, if I wanted to reach the Hokori later, I’d need to get past the border guard, to say nothing of any of the other reasons I might need to hide.

Something to help me run away, just in case. Ways to defend myself, though the gauntlets might count if that worked, and I could try some more general armor.

I’d focus on them for now and see what other skills I discovered along with whatever came to me. Hopefully, there'd be more than enough time before anything dangerous happened.

But what should I focus on, once I leveled up?

I closed my eyes and frowned. If I was right, then…it should get harder to level up as time went on, so early on I should focus on things I didn’t want to wait for. My mom was completely right—I had time to become whatever I wanted. I could become strong and fast and tough and anything else. But while I could do it easily, I should focus on…

“Intelligence and Wisdom, huh?” I muttered before nodding to myself. If I was smart and wise, I could figure out how to get stronger or come up with solutions to things I couldn’t face with strength alone.

I could make up for weakness with intelligence, but could I make up for being stupid by being strong? Maybe, but it’d probably be harder and I might regret it.

“It’s a plan, then,” I said, smiling to myself as I started drawing my shield from my inventory. “Just watch me—I’m gonna be great someday.”

Thus I started my path to greatness by whacking a tree repeatedly with a slab of metal.