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Volume 2 Wandering
Chapter 1: The First Drop of Blood
Apart from a magic crystal, Rabid Hound Kaplan left us some other things. Elegant Strings skinned its fur—he was not only a clumsy ranger and a logically chaotic speaker but also an atrociously bad leatherworker. The skinning process was bloodier than our previous battle. The small knife in his hands seemed heavier than an axe; he practically tore the dog's skin off piece by piece with his bare hands. By the time he finished, the once smooth and supple animal hide was now a ragged mess resembling a dirty cloth. At that moment, I almost felt sorry for the dead dog—no matter what brutal acts it committed in life, such a posthumous fate was excessively cruel.
I no longer believe the nonsense about "elves being a nature-loving, animal-loving race."
Moreover, what baffled me most was that after completing this atrocious task, Elegant Strings—the worst tanner I had ever seen—actually leveled up?!
When selecting my spoils, I thought of the claw and teeth marks Kaplan left on my sturdy shield. The natural sharpness and hardness of this beast’s claws and teeth made most finely crafted steel swords pale in comparison. Its two longest fangs were four inches long, curving into a fierce arc, their sharp tips making me wince at the mere sight. These were natural weapons; it took great effort to pry them out of the hound’s mouth.
While extracting the teeth, I unexpectedly discovered that Kaplan's blood wasn't the usual bright red but a foul-smelling, viscous green liquid. Finding it peculiar, I asked Millionfold for an empty potion vial and collected some of the dog's blood.
After all this, we dragged our exhausted bodies toward Kampnavia in the twilight.
...
"Oh, you’ve dealt with these long-toothed beasts. That’s great; they’ve been causing me a lot of trouble lately, and my wife has wanted a dog-skin rug... Anyway, thank you for your contribution to city security. Here, take this; it’s your well-deserved reward."
This was my first meeting with Sheriff Gerald, who should be—or rather, "once was"—my superior. He clearly had no impression of the gate guards under his command, so he showed no particular reaction to me.
Mr. Gerald was a lethargic middle-aged man, overweight with a red nose and a balding forehead. If he weren’t wearing his city guard officer uniform, one might mistake him for an ordinary citizen like a butcher. He took three dog pelts from me and Millionfold and handed us our task rewards. The reward should have been five silver coins, but I got twenty-five extra coppers—thanks to my human "mercantile" nature. Additionally, we both gained eight hundred soul power points—indicating slaughter isn’t the sole path to soul growth.
After completing this simple procedure, Mr. Gerald sat at his large desk, frowning as he continued perusing a thick stack of documents. Undoubtedly, he was troubled by some difficult matters needing strong assistance because any further words to him would elicit a dispirited response: "I have some troubles to solve, but you’re obviously not strong enough yet."
Leaving the Sheriff’s office, Millionfold stretched:
"It’s too late; I need to sleep, or I’ll be late tomorrow."
"I need rest too..." Elegant Strings was equally weary. "...Will you come back tomorrow?"
"Probably, around the same time..." Turning to me, Millionfold asked, "...What about you, Jeff?"
"Me?" I didn’t know how to answer. Planewalkers often engage in exchanges incomprehensible to me, seemingly having entirely different concepts of time and space. My two friends considered me one of them—a "player." It wasn’t their fault; restless Natives like me are rare. Being with them almost made me feel like a Planewalker myself.
Hesitating, I decided against emphasizing our differences. I had a strange premonition: they wouldn’t understand my origins or my life. If I told them my story, they’d see me as an outsider, mock me, and distance themselves. I didn’t want to lose my newly found friends, nor be treated like a monster.
"I’ll always be here..." I forced a smile, vaguely responding, "...Anyway, I have nowhere else to go."
Hearing my response, Elegant Strings sighed deeply: "You seem young. Youth is wonderful; there’s plenty of time to waste without worrying about livelihood..."
Young? Perhaps, to the long-lived elf race, an adult human’s age is akin to a child’s. But the elf ranger’s words carried a completely different meaning.
"Let’s add each other as friends for future contact," Millionfold suggested. He took out his magical journal and aimed it at Elegant Strings and me. Elegant Strings did the same.
I just learned about this use of magical journals. After trying it, Millionfold and Elegant Strings’ names immediately appeared on the "Social" page, glowing golden.
"Alright, I’m going to sleep. See you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
As soon as they spoke, their bodies became blurry, like wisps of smoke gradually thinning and disappearing. Meanwhile, my magical journal remained open, and I noticed their names turning from golden to gray—indicating these Planewalkers had left this plane.
This shows how peculiar Planewalkers' habits are: sleeping can easily be done in a cheap inn—though unnecessary to me since sleep doesn’t exist in my memory; I merely "know" its meaning theoretically, like many other inexplicable pieces of knowledge in my mind. Planewalkers must leave to another spatiotemporal plane to complete this simple physiological activity. Perhaps among countless planes in the universe, there’s one dedicated solely to these space travelers' sleep.
To me, this is utterly redundant.
Well, my only two friends temporarily left my world to sleep somewhere peaceful. Now, what should I do? Uh... uh...
Damn, I suddenly realized a serious problem: since I escaped my fate as a gate guard and gained freedom, I had spent all my time hunting and adventuring with my companions. My actions always aligned with their goals, and my choices were consistently guided by their suggestions and wishes. It seems there never truly existed decisions belonging solely to "me."
Before all this began, in that brief solitary moment when I gained freedom but hadn’t yet met Millionfold, what I was doing was...
...thinking about what I should do...
Legends say everyone is followed by a deity accompanying them till old age. These deities wield a whip called desire, driving people along their destined paths, tirelessly pursuing. This invisible whip lashes at souls, creating thirst and ambition, making everyone know what they want and how to achieve it.
I turned around, looking behind me. There was the Sheriff’s office door, dark and gloomy inside. My deity of fate wasn’t there.
This was my issue. I seemed hollow, aimless, directionless, with no pursuits of my own. My origins were strange and unique. On my life’s journey, no one accompanied me. I didn’t know where to go, unable to return to the starting point. My life was awkward and lonely, always needing others’ commands and suggestions to find direction.
So, what should I do now? Continue the tiresome hunting and slaughtering, aimlessly increasing my soul level? Or stand there blankly until my two companions return, following their wishes?
I stood desolately in the corner, taking off my backpack and idly rummaging through it. Suddenly, my hand touched a small, cold, unfamiliar object. Taking it out, I saw it was a bottle of green liquid.
I remembered—it was a small bottle of blood I took from Kaplan’s corpse. When I found this beast’s blood wasn’t the usual red, I thought it strange and collected some. Come to think of it, this might be the first time I found something "strange" and wanted to explore it thoroughly.
A sudden pack of wild dogs harassing the city, a mutated beast leader becoming a magical creature, and a bottle of green blood—all seemed to carry special significance, pointing to a suspicious result. I liked this feeling; though confusing, it made me think, better than the emptiness of solitude.
I decided to show this to the Sheriff, as this unusual blood came from the wild dog leader while the city was plagued by wild dogs.
Re-entering the Sheriff’s office, I approached him:
"Sir, I have something to report..."
"I have some troubles to solve, but you’re obviously not strong enough." As expected, Mr. Gerald repeated his woes dejectedly.
Without saying more, I directly placed the bottle of green dog blood before him.
My guess was correct; the venerable Sheriff perked up upon seeing the bottle. He picked it up, looked closely, uncapped it, and sniffed lightly:
"Where did you get this?" His face changed slightly as he asked me.
"It’s the blood of the wild dog leader outside the city. I found it unusual and thought I should report it." I replied.
He frowned: "It resembles something I’ve seen, but I can’t be sure. You’d better show it to apothecary Eld in the city. His pharmacy is behind the trade district; you shouldn’t have trouble finding it."
With that, he immediately buried himself again in sorting through the thick stack of documents and pondering his troubling dilemma.
I quickly found apothecary Eld—in fact, I’d visited his shop more than once. Every time we returned to the city for supplies, Millionfold would set up a stall outside his shop, selling small health potions slightly cheaper than his prices.
Apothecary Eld didn’t seem upset by our competitive business behavior. After explaining my visit, the gray-haired old man only grumbled lowly: "Oh, that troublesome Sheriff again; he’s bothered me more than once and never pays. Maybe I should give him a testing bill to prevent him from spending all security funds on treating his baldness."
He placed the green dog blood in a transparent crystal container, handed me the empty bottle, and said: "To figure out what this is, I need a blood analyzer. Lucky for you, I just ordered one recently. You need to fetch it from alchemist Edgeville."
Alchemist Edgeville lived in a remote corner south of the city. I easily found it. In fact, no one could mistake this place since, amidst the densely packed houses of Kampnavia, only this house stood isolated, surrounded by empty space, with the nearest house fifty steps away. This was unimaginable in Kampnavia, where land was expensive.
On the way, I also visited the city’s warrior trainer, further enhancing my sword-fighting skills. I upgraded my "Thrust" and "Slash" skills to level two and learned a new combat skill, "Smash," which could suppress opponents with great force, paralyzing their defensive arms and reducing their attack speed.
Compared to these trainers’ teachings, they imparted basic combat techniques. Though we often used them, they didn’t yield effects as noticeable as the skills we independently mastered.
Entering Edgeville’s house, it seemed like it had just suffered an earthquake or hurricane. A legless bookshelf lay on the ground, a broken desk half at the doorway and half at the stairwell. The floor was piled with various items; everyday household goods displayed unusually, like rotting greasy vegetable leaves, shattered bottles, cracked plates, and flat-bottomed pans. Besides these, there were expensive, rare, seldom-seen precious items... in derivative forms, like marble statues with smashed heads, large oil paintings burnt halfway, dresses embroidered with gold and gems missing a sleeve and part of the hem, or waterlogged, urine-colored, rat-chewed thick hardcover books.
I struggled through the hall and finally reached the staircase. At the stairwell, crimson flames flickered wildly, casting a gaunt shadow on the wall, accompanied by frenzied, piercing "hehe" laughter. As the only human in this house, I had reason to believe this shadow was my target, Kampnavia’s alchemist Edgeville.
Just as I stepped onto the stairs, a loud "bang" came from upstairs. Flames surged, and shards of containers whizzed past the stairwell, smashing violently against the walls, startling me.
When everything calmed down, I dared to ascend. Standing at the stairwell, I saw the originally spacious area crammed full of strange instruments, making it hard to turn around. I wasn’t quite sure if these could be called "instruments"; they were heavily damaged, some even pieced together from scrap. If not placed here, most people would categorize them as "trash."
A tall, thin figure stood amidst this pile of junk, facing a messy stone platform. The platform was covered with various fragments; a twisted metal frame stood painfully contorted on the platform, still emitting black smoke, reminding me of the recent violent explosion. On the second-floor wall, two glaring holes hung menacingly, replacing the windows’ original function—clearly the result of a powerful blast.
Now I understood why this house could stand so aloofly isolated—I guessed no one had the courage to befriend a dangerous neighbor whose house might explode anytime.
As I stood stunned, the figure turned to me. His face was charred, hair curled, clothes tattered, exhaling a thick plume of black smoke.
"Don’t worry..." He grinned, revealing two rows of white teeth starkly contrasting with his explosion-blackened face.
"...It was just a minor accident."
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