“Leave Karma alone now Tear, we need to get to The Outpost sometime today,” I told the catgirl who had resumed nervously petting the giant Stardust Dragon.

“Are we going to fly again?” she asked without enthusiasm, taking the chance to step away from the tower guardian, who appeared a little sad for a moment before reordering its coils round the tower.

“If you don't want to fly with me, then what are your measurements for clothes?” I demanded.

“Like I'd tell you them even if I knew,” she snapped back.

“Then the only choice is to fly with me, unless you can walk through ten kilometres of high Class monster infested woods. And don't worry about falling, as long as you have that pendant you will survive even if I drop you from above the clouds!” I added cheerfully.

“You fill me with confidence,” she groaned but allowed me to pick her up gently and take off.

I flew quite slowly, despite the fact that catgirl could now survive the fall just as well as any cat, so I reckoned there would be about ten minutes before we arrived.

“So, Tear, how much health and mana do you have?” I asked to pass the time.

She concentrated for a second. “I have 12.6 mana and 93 health.” She paused for a moment. “That's the highest my health has been in a long time,” she said melancholically, then paused as if realising something. “My mana has gone up by .7 since yesterday!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, well it would have. What's your max health?” I queried, and she looked at me strangely.

“It's a hundred, ... and one? No that's wrong, it can't increase past a hundred,” she said, confused and a little concerned.

“Really? A hundred is the cap?” I was shocked. That was the only the starting health of player! That meant I could one-shot almost anybody!

“I had heard that the Holy Knights could increase their health pools, but I haven't heard of anyone outside the Order knowing how,” she sounded anxious. “Both my mana and health pools have increased overnight! What's happening to me!”

“Calm down,” I said reassuringly, “it's probably just you absorbing the mana from the mana spring my tower is built on. I guess the 'Holy Knights' increase their health in a similar way.”

“No wait, hold on! The tower is built on a mana spring?!” she exclaimed. “Even I know those are really rare!”

“Why do you think I built my tower out in the middle of a monster infested wood in the first place?”

“I thought you were just a sad loner,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Oi,” I growled, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “I think that as you're still growing and have a smaller health and mana pool than I do, the concentrated mana trapped in the tower is affecting you more strongly. My health hasn't increased at all whereas yours has increased by an entire 1 in just a single night!”

“Out of curiosity, how much health and mana do you have?” Tear asked.

“500 health, but 600 with a booster potion, and only 201.6 mana.”

She gaped at me before seeming to focus on just one of the words in that sentence. “Only 201 mana? What do you mean 'only'?” she asked.

“Well I have a friend who has around four hundred mana,” I answered casually and her jaw dropped. Well, 'friend' wasn't exactly correct, he was a magic specialised character that I had as a backup. Talking of which, I needed to try summoning my other specialist characters. The one I had at the moment was my most powerful character, an all-rounder, because the game devs decided 'screw specialising'. Well, outside of multiplayer anyway. …or unless you were specialising for stupid DPS with the Zenith, but that made everything too easy.

I looked down and saw Tear still had her mouth open. “Close your mouth,” I said, “unless you're trying to catch flies.”

She shut it in a hurry, but still seemed rather dazed. “Should I tell her about the Dungeon Guardian's 3000 attack, or the Moon Lord's 277311 total health in Master Mode?” I mused to myself, then decided I'd better not.

Soon afterwards, we came up on the town, and, as usual, I descended into the trees about 500 meters away. I gently set Tear down, then spun, drawing my sword from my inventory and stabbed through the head of one of the two large, bear like monsters behind us. A blast of red energy shot out of the sky an instant after the strike, smashing into the second, and passing straight through into the ground below.

“Nice sword,” Tear commented, and I mentally praised my decision to swap my Meowmere with the Star Wrath. I just knew the catgirl would have made a sarcastic comment about me using a pink cat sword.

“Thank you,” I said, humping the corpses onto my shoulder. I intended to see if I could see them in town, whether to a butcher, or to someone else.

As we approached the town gate, I spotted two guards talking in the middle of the gate. I recognised the one facing me as Steven. He saw me, winked surreptitiously at me and continued talking to the other guard without a moment pause.

I grinned, understanding his intentions, and carried on walking forward, this time in complete silence, my ninja costume muting my already soft footfalls.

I stopped just behind the second guard, positioned so that the head of one of the bear monsters was at eye level right behind him.

Steven halted his conversation abruptly. “Naaw then Jeremy, what have ah told ya aboot ne’er halting in yer guard duty?”

'Jeremy' drew himself up and saluted sloppily. “To never cease in your vigilance of the area under your command. Sir.” He rattled off, tacked on the 'sir' like it was a habit he had struggled and failed to break.

“Right,” Steven said, nodding over his shoulder at me, “an' what's that?”

The guard spun rapidly, coming face to face with the dead bear monster. He yelped and fell over backwards then glared at Steven before walking off in a huff.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked, despite the fact that I had been an accessory to the deed.

“Yes, he'd been slacking off in his gate duty,” Steven said gloomily, not a trace of his accent in his voice, “and in the Beast Woods no less! He should be thankful he only got pranked!”

Then he seemed to remember he was supposed to have an accent, and put it back on. “Weel, anyhow, thanks for takin’ care of those two Breaker Bears, they bin causin’ trouble for days now.”

I paused for a moment, before deciding to avoid mentioning his accent. From how Lupia had acted while I was buying my land, many people came out here to escape their pasts, so I didn't want to pry. “That so? Well they attacked us as we were passing through so I got rid of them,” I said nonchalantly. Steven blinked twice, then a slight smile flicked across his lips, as though he had just had something he was certain about confirmed.

“It took about two seconds,” chipped in Tear from the side. Steven seemed to notice her for the first time.

“Who's the young'un?” he asked and Tear bristled.

“I can speak for myself!” she exclaimed, “and I'm not young! I'm already 16!”

“Then I was right with what I said, young'un,” he said, leaning casually on his spear.

She hissed and I laid a hand calmingly on her shoulder.

“You're just proving his point with how immature you're being,” I told her, and she lapsed into a sullen silence. “Sorry about Tear, she's a little rough round the edges,” I lowered my voice to a theatrical whisper and continued, “and she's a little bit dumb.” This earnt me a kick to the shin from Tear, and a hearty laugh from Steven.

“Aye well, nice to meet ya little Tear,” he said sticking out a reconciliatory hand, “I'm known as Steven round here.”

She stopped hopping around clutching her foot, took the proffered hand, gave it a quick shake, and let go. I nudged her and gave her a look. “Nice to meet you too,” she said begrudgingly and Steven chuckled.

After a few moments, his face shifted, taking on a more serious look, and when he spoke, his accent had thinned considerably. “Since you don’t live in town you may not have heard that one of the town’s hunters said he saw a meteor fall into the beast forest a few days ago. I know you leave town and head out in the direction he said he saw it fall, so just be careful alright? I don’t like it when people I know die.”

“What’s up with meteorites anyway, why are they so dangerous?” Tear queried, ears at a quizzical angle.

“When a meteor lands, it flattens everything around it. But that ain’t the dangerous part. The material of tha meteorite itself forms itself into monsters which go straight for any creature near it an’ ya have ta defeat them before ya can collect the material. We call ‘em meteor heads cause they’re heads made of the meteor.” Steven chuckled, his accent slowly thickening as he spoke. He didn’t seem to notice it was a different one. “Good thing is that the meteor fell in tha Beast Forest, so it should exhaust itself pretty quickly since most’a ta monsters round here won’t find it too difficult ta flatten any meteor heads thrown their way. If it were ta fall somewhere else, it might be a bit more of a problem.”

“What about if one fell near a city? I saw one when I was visiting Durell yesterday.”

“Durell huh?” Steven mused, “If it’s there tha damage shouldn’t be too bad, either Captain Illupay will mobilise tha city guards or tha city authorities should issue a request to the adventurer’s guild which should be able to handle it. It’s part of their job tae handle things like that anyway.”

“Part of their job… things like this happen often?”

“Naw, events are usually rare, tha reason why there’re so many meteors is that tha kingdom’s been experiencing a meteor shower recently.”

There was a brief beat of silence, then Steven laughed and clapped me on my shoulder. “I doubt ya need tae worry ‘bout this kinda thing; I could kinda feel that you’re strong from the edges of your aura from when we first met, but since ya had it retracted I can’t tell just how strong ya are! Now you’ve now got it retracted much better, I can hardly tell at all!”

“Thanks, I’ve been practising,” I replied, pleased by his compliment.

“Well then, ya two go better be off, don't let me detain ya,” he said, waving us off. “The butcher would pay handsomely for them bears, and if ya make sure to get their coats, they'll fetch a good price from the tailor,” he added as we turned to leave.

“Thanks Steven,” I said, heading in the direction he indicated.

“Just ask 'em to give me a discount!”