Mayer rushed me out the door, like a cattle dog herding… well, cattle.

The small town was a lot fuller than during the night. Residents were milling about, taking care of their daily tasks and doing their work.

The townsfolk were all dressed from brutally practical, probably for work and work only, all the way to half decent. Frocks and tunics seemed to be all the fashion, and my clothing even seemed nice in comparison to some.

“Hey Mayer.” I called out to the stoically silent man. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “What is this town even called?”

“It doesn’t have a name. We’re at the very end of a trade road, between two larger settlements. All the towns down these roads are called road towns, imaginatively. There are too many to keep track of, and no one to officialise it.” He shrugged.

Well, that was enlightening.

Speaking of trade, I wonder if there was proper trade? This town was on that border of civilised and not quite civilised that made it difficult to tell. Mayer had said that there were other towns, larger settlements even. That meant that there had to be trade of some sort. Its possible that it was trade without use of coins, just goods for other goods, or a de facto good to trade like wheat or something.

As we walked down the dirt street, there were quite a few looks from the townsfolk, eyeing me up—trying to figure out who I was or where I was from, I’d assume. However, once they saw who I was with, they seemed to become entirely uninterested in who I was. Which was interesting.

I’d picked up that Mayer was a little understated on his reputation. He wore the clothes of a normal resident; he even looked the part. But if his home was anything to go by—not to mention his magic—he was more than just that. There was also the wand, because honestly, if that didn’t trip someone’s “holy shit this guy isn’t what he seems” sensor, then I want what they’re smoking.

Plus, he also knew Ryan, a past Champion, which means something. I’m just not sure what exactly.

“Um, what are we doing?” I honestly didn’t know what to expect for an answer to this question.

“What do you mean, what are we doing? We’re going to do some farm work!” Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that.

“Farm work? Uh, why exactly?” I didn’t quite understand why Mayer seemed to think that it was so obvious.

“Why else, to pull your weight. You aren’t here for free kid.” Mayer laughed evilly.

Oh no, this isn’t going to be fun, is it.

Holy shit. Kill me already.

I swear to God, or Gods or whatever, this guy is trying to kill me. Not Mayer, he’s off doing something else, the slack bastard.

No, it’s this other guy, mid-thirties probably and a hard taskmaster. Currently I was using the horned edge of my hammer to break up the earth to plant something in. No idea and can’t even bring myself to care.

If there was any way to kill all wonder that you have about a new world with magic, its to work yourself silly. Show you just how undeveloped this world’s technology is.

The work was plain body destroying. I was being used in place of a damn horse, doing at least two peoples work, maybe three. The constant strain was unrelenting. I couldn’t even use all the little techniques that I’d picked up to help manage the weight, because I was actually using the weight to break the earth. I had to use all my strength to keep the hammer in control at all.

If I hit one little pebble that didn’t give in to the weight, then my hammer goes veering off course. Originally, I had tried to pull it along using all of my body weight cartoon style which was—as you could guess—colossally stupid.

The hammer didn’t actually stay deep enough into the dirt. Meaning that, when it hit anything, it'd be pushed off course or up out of the earth and right onto my foot.

So now my foot hurts like all hell. Probably not broken. Probably.

I had already spent hours doing this. It was ridiculous, even in comparison to yesterday’s exertion. It was worse even. Plus, I hadn’t exactly fully recovered, my muscles were still sore when I woke up, so I was already working with a deficit.

I can’t possibly imagine that Mayer actually cares all that much about me immediately pulling my weight. Especially not as soon as I stepped foot in the town. He definitely has an ulterior motive. Well, ulterior makes it sound worse than I mean. He obviously knows something more than I do, and he’s not telling me for whatever reason, most likely to watch me squirm.

My best theory is that he knows more about the stats than I do. It had become more likely that either only select beings had access to the stat screen or literally only the Champion candidates do. Simply because no-one seems to act the way that you’d think they would with the ability to upgrade your stats. For one, horses were still used for labour, which would be absurd because the farmer would be as strong as a bull from even basic achievements. So, I highly doubted that the average person had the screen. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people without the stat screen cannot achieve great strength. I’m not sure how life with a stat screen compares with one without here.

Is the screen only an advantage with no drawbacks? It seems like it, at least from where I am so far. Though... what happens when achievements are getting harder and harder to get? Does the screen start to show its downsides?

There is no reason to overthink things for now. Except, overthinking things is the only thing keeping my mind off of the searing pain in my legs right now. So let’s return to overthinking things.

I was also somewhat hesitant to call the screen a system. A system is more like a network of things, many different components all converging to create one functioning machine. But I’ve been given no real indication that this screen is anything other than a stupid–

“Max!” A voice called, breaking me from my overthinking loop. I looked over to Mayer, eyes scalding hot with mock hate at being left to this torture. Mayer didn’t seem to care, jumping the low fence and coming over close to me and looking at me oddly.

“Am I done? Can I go rest?” I said, exasperated and more than a little tired. Mayer Held out a hand, making me pause as I started to put down my hammer. I stared directly at Mayer, quirking an eyebrow inquisitively, preparing a question.

“Stay still for a second.” Mayer held deadly still; his eyes locked with mine. A few seconds and I started to feel uncomfortable, a few seconds after that I began to be confused, a few seconds after that, intimidation, then finally-

[A Day on the Farm: A day on the farm is hard, especially if you’re the horse pulling the plow. Oh wait, you were. +3 Might]

My mouth opened ever so slightly, not enough to notice anything, I would have thought anyway.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Mayer said, a crafty grin on his face. I had no choice but to nod. Once I did, the older man’s face lit up with a genuine grin.

“That means that it hasn’t changed since Ryan was around, or at least not this part. Now that I know that its roughly the same, I can help you at least a little.” The old man looked at the farmer and nodded in appreciation, and the farmer dipped his head deeper, more a sign of respect than acknowledgement.

“So, you know about the stat screen?” I said, not actually asking, just really moving the conversation forwards. Mayer nodded.

“Me and Ryan spent hours figuring the thing out. It was an interesting time. Turns out, two heads were better than one. Ryan abused that shitty screen all he could.” My eyes widened.

"Ryan thought it was a bad system too?" Mayer laughed quietly.

"Yeah, he was always ranting and raving about it being unscalable and unnecessarily restrictive. He hated that it didn’t reward training and practice naturally. Always said it was a ball and chain, but you Champions don't have much choice." I scrunched my eyebrows together, confused.

"Does that mean it isn't strong?" I asked but Mayer quickly shook his head.

"No, you can get extraordinarily powerful with the screen, as you are. The last Champions were uniquely powerful by the time the Champion War started in earnest. But Ryan loved to theorise about how much more progress he could have made if he could train and progress naturally." Mayer chuckled.

I guess even Ryan thought that the screen was as bad as I thought it was. I... didn't know how to feel about that. I felt like I'd been robbed of something. I couldn't help but wonder if Ryan had felt the same, being boiled down to three numbers and some stupid achievements. I sighed heavily.

Well, even so. If Ryan could get powerful with this shitty stat screen, then I could too. I hope.