Chapter 16

He took the moment of privacy to slip on his clothes that had been moved to his bedside before Thera walked in."Oh hey," He said, awkwardly buttoning his pants. Before he could think of whatever he should say she was bowing at him.

"I'm sorry. If I had told you about my magic earlier then you wouldn't have been hurt the forest."

"What? Don't worry about it. I should have asked more questions before we left, and it's my fault for not paying attention. I'm usually a bit more careful, I swear."

They stood in silence for a moment longer, both feeling awkward and not knowing what to say before Thera spoke up.

"Should we go report the kill to the guild? It may have only been one but I guess it will be the last we can do until you make me a new staff."

"Sure, sounds good."

As they were leaving Ben realized he hadn’t been brought to a clinic, but to their actual home, and then wandered into the guild.

Onk was still at the counter and gave them both a friendly greeting when they went in.

"Back already? How did the hunt go?"

"Not ideal," Thera told them, neglecting to mention the specific events of their hunt.

"We only got one," A small problem came to Ben's mind. "Wait, we didn't bring the body. How are we supposed to prove we killed one?"

"I guess this is your first quest Ben, you don’t need to bother bringing any remains unless there is a specific request for them. Now here, both of you give me your cards. Whenever you hunt something after you've joined the guild can inspect them for what you've hunted and how much you contributed. Thera it looks like you got 70 percent of the kill."

Ben came to a realization as they were giving their explanation and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with the outcome of it. "Hey you can give mine back. I don't really care about raising my rank at all."

"Nonsense, it's important to do this to ensure everyone gets proper credit for their work. Now… this can't be right," Onk muttered as Thera looked between them both, a little confused by Ben's sudden awkwardness and Onks change in demeanor.

"Ben, you have a lot of unreported kills," If they had a face Ben was sure Onk would be staring a hole through him. "I thought you said you were just going out to gather supplies."

"I mean technically monsters are supplies." He told them with his most innocent look.

"There's a few dozen on here… and your first kill was an Amarok! I thought you didn't have any combat skills?"

"I don't, I just made some traps is all. Blame my teacher, he was insistent that I hunt one if he was going to take me on."

"Wait, how much did he contribute to hunting an Amarok?" Thera cut in.

"100 percent. He managed it without help." He couldn't tell why, but he could hear a lot of unhappiness in their voice.

"Um, is that a problem?"

"It's not exactly a problem per se. It's just, it may cause you some issues later is all."

"Wait, why?"

"You've successfully hunted enough powerful monsters to be moved up a rank. Ordinarily, this would be a matter of congratulations but ranking up also comes with its own added responsibilities. Namely that you'll now have to participate in any emergency quests. There aren't many that have happened that would take rank sixes, normally that's reserved for rank fives at the lowest, but it can happen. This regularly wouldn’t be a big deal, any emergency request can be dangerous but the only time lower ranks are included is if it's something they should be able to manage or if it’s expected everyone would die either way. The issue is that without any combat skills even the safer ones could leave you at risk. You could always revoke your rights as an adventurer, but then you would no longer get access to the archives.”

“Ah well, I’ll keep being an adventurer for now, that's not too bad after all. Aren’t we expecting the world to be invaded in a few years? Seems a bit silly to worry about any other emergencies in the meantime.”

“I’m not sure if that's a positive or extremely negative way of looking at things,” They said while handing back his card.

“It just is what it is,” He told them, glancing at his card and about to put it away before having to do a double-take. “Hey I think you made a mistake, you added a lot of money to my account.”

“No mistake. An Amarok is considered a rank five monster and you’ve killed a few rank six as well. Even without the money you would have received if there had been requests for them it still gets you a reasonable amount of income.”

It looked like a couple months of casual hunting was enough to let him live for about a week even if there weren't requests, so long as what he hunted was judged to be a great enough threat to public safety. It wasn't enough to live off of or make Ben want to start hunting full time, but now that he knew, it would be a good way to make a little extra pocket money. Especially considering he would have to hunt for materials anyway. “Cool okay then, hey Thera wanna grab a bite before going back to Falk's?”

Jerking her head when she heard her name, her mind had clearly been wondering. “Why would we? And why are we going to uncle's shop?”

“Um, we’re working together now, it doesn’t hurt to get better acquainted. We have to go back to the shop anyway if I’m going to start on your new staff.”

“You’re starting already? We only just got you treated.”

He gave a shrug. “Yeah but I'm fine now, may as well work. So food?”

“Not interested. Let's hurry back then.”

“Your loss.”

They left the guild and on the way Ben stopped to grab some skewers from a cart. He still tried to offer one to Thera but she recoiled from him as he got too close with it.

He was a little hurt but he was only a temporary partner after all. Maybe she just didn’t want to bother getting close to someone she wouldn’t be working with for long.

When they went into the shop they were immediately greeted by an angry Falk.

“Damn it brat! How did you get yourself injured on your first hunt with my niece? And from a screll no less? You’ve never brought me any materials from a monster that weak before, but one managed to take you out?”

“Sorry Falk, I got distracted trying to figure out how to make some better items, the ones I currently made just couldn’t stand up to Theras power.”

“Don’t give me that. I’ve seen what you’ve made boy, they wouldn’t break on her first couple spells.”

“It’s my fault,” Thera spoke up. “I haven’t been strictly truthful with you uncle. While your staves last me a week or two it's because I only use them a couple times a day.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Only that many? Why didn’t you… No never mind. If I had known I would have made you sturdier ones.”

“You can do that?” She asked, surprised.

“Of course, who do you think I am? I’ve given you some weaker ones to help you practice regulating your power. Still if that's the case then Ben won’t be able to make anything worthwhile, but I’m still too busy. What to do?”

“Boss, if it's all the same to you I want to keep trying.”

They both seemed surprised for a moment but Falk was quick to recover. “Why would you want to do that boy? Interested in seeing all of your hard work blow up each day.”

“It just seems like good practice is all. I don’t want to quit just because something is a bit challenging.”

Falk put on a thoughtful look for a second before giving an answer. “Alright then, suit yourself. Saves me the trouble of finding someone else at least.”

With that done Ben spent the rest of his day at the forge, experimenting with materials to try and make something that would work.

“Can you try a little harder to not get yourself killed? Dying to one of the weaker rank seven monsters would just be embarrassing.”

“Hey Myriad, show a bit more enthusiasm that your favourite worshipper is in good health would you.”

“I would be happier if you didn't nearly die in such a dumb way.”

“Cut me some slack, that was pretty dangerous for a rank 7 animal wasn’t it?”

“Most animals on the planet are dangerous, they’re either the ones that lived here when the lands were primitive and savage before environmental changes could make a softer world or they came with the refugees, usually as a result of some god just scooping up a pile of land and bringing it here. Weren’t you warned that leaving the protection of a town carries some dangers?”

“I guess. So I got my butt kicked by some weakling then.”

“Only comparatively. When weighed against anything from Earth it could be considered pretty dangerous at least, but that's not why I brought you here. Given recent events I’ve decided to speed things along. It’s ready.”

“Really!” Ben felt his eyes light up and his face pull into an excited grin. He had been waiting for this for a while and it was finally happening.

“Yep, technically it’s unfinished but hopefully that works in our favour. Plus you spent a lot of time praying for the pain to go away when your leg got mangled so as your patron god I’m in pretty good form at the moment. Now come place your hand on me.”

He didn’t really need to be reminded of what happened earlier anymore but he did what he was told and placed his hand on top of Myriad's cool metallic form when a voice rang out in his mind.

After months of waiting, worshipping Myriad had finally paid off and he got a gift skill from his god. It only left a question.

“What does it actually do?” The name didn’t really give many hints and he wanted to test it out as fast as possible.

“It lets you connect to other living things by touching them. At low levels you will probably only be able to access feelings instead of any thoughts, but practice it and you’ll get there.”

“What? Got something to say?”

“No no, this is cool and all, it's just a little...underwhelming I guess? Why would you leave a skill like this unfinished anyway?”

“Underwhelming? Here I am slaving over some hot magic and soul bits for months to put this together and you're underwhelmed? You’re literally the first creature in this world to have this skill, couldn’t you be a bit more excited about it?” He could feel the indignation coming off of his god in waves for a moment before he seemed to calm down and answer his question. “Anyway, if I overdevelop it the skill will be more… fixed in the way it grows with time. Leaving it a little unfinished gives the world itself some room to make it more flexible. I’m hoping that will let you do some things my kind weren’t able to.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well, after your recent encounter if it could develop so it could be used without having to make physical contact that would be ideal. It wasn’t a function of my own race but you would be able to use it as a sort of danger sense in that case and hopefully not die until you secure me some believers. Still, now it's out of my hands so we’ll just have to wait and see if such a convenient development occurs. Even still in its base form it’s a skill I put a lot of work into making so none of this being underwhelmed nonsense,” He finished with a huff.

“Okay okay you’re right. Sorry. Come here and let me test it out then.” Ben reached out his hand and approached his god, but Myriad flew back like a bullet.

“Hey, be careful with that thing! It may be okay to use it on a mortal or anything weaker than you, but at your current level you won’t be able to control what gets in, using it on a god is likely to make your head explode.”

“...Noted.” He withdrew his hand, more than a little uncomfortable at how close he had come to another early death. "Still seems like a bit of an odd skill, how's it related to your race then?"

"It's not that odd, we would just directly transfer information from our sub-brains by linking tentacles, it's pretty efficient. I don't know why more races don't do it."

“Anyway just make sure to practice it. I may have created the skill itself, but how it grows and changes is in the hands of you and the world.”

He decided to put the information about his god's race on hold for now. “Alright will do, I guess I am a little curious about using a skill nobody has ever used before.”

“Excellent, now go have fun. It looks like you’re about to wake up.”