When Barley awoke, he found himself in an unfamiliar large bed. Red curtains were tied to the bedposts, and the room itself was decorated with what his previous life’s memories termed: old fashioned fineries.

 He blinked, feeling very confused. A bird called from another room.

“I suppose you’re wondering where you are, and what you’re doing here.” A voice came from his left.

Barley turned his head to see a rather annoyed-looking man.

Greying hair was brushed back neatly, and hung almost to his shoulders. Several small scars were visible on his face, peeking out from his completely grey beard. His eyes were still sharp, though, underneath his wrinkled brows.

“That would be what I was thinking, yes.” Barley replied, cautiously. “I bet you can guess what my next question would be, too.”

The man leaned back in his seat, and the corner of his mouth rose in a sardonic smile. “I might at that. But before I can answer you on those three points, I’ll have to confirm a few things first.”

Barley closed his eyes. “You are free to ask, but whether or not I will answer depends upon the questions.”

Since he did not know where he was or who he was speaking to, he decided to exercise caution. After having almost died twice, he wasn’t in the mood for an interrogation.

“Very well, then. I will keep this brief.” The man said.

“My first question is what do you have to do with the young man known as John?”

“Him, huh? I’m sorry, but if you just saved me to dig for information about him, then you’re out of luck. I only just recently met him, you see.” Barley replied.

The man’s eyebrows raised, but he asked the second question.

“Who do you work for?”

“I work at Carpkin’s Grocery store as a clerk. I have no other employers.” Barley replied.

The man nodded, and leaned forward.

“Last question: why did you save John?”

“My body moved on its own, how should I know!?” Barley frowned. “In hindsight I could probably come up with a few convincing reasons, but as for why I did so…He’s a boke who couldn’t even do math properly, and is obsessed with becoming a good merchant, even though he doesn’t know how to haggle…but, really, I don’t quite know why, myself.”

Maybe it’s because I’m practically his teacher? Did I feel responsible for him, because I took him out to practice haggling? Barley mused. That practically made him that boke prince’s caretaker, though.

As Barley was musing, a familiar voice came from the door.

“Barley! You’re awake! Franz, you meanie! I told you to tell me as soon as he woke up!”

Barley turned his head just as a relieved John rushed to the bedside.

“Does it hurt? Franz didn’t bully you, did he?” John glared at Franz.

First name basis, huh? Not his father, then, but a retainer? Barley mused. Either that, or a bodyguard, but he doesn’t really have that bodyguard vibe to him. Retainer it is, then.

“Nah, he’s all right. I just woke up, so he would probably have called you in a moment or so. But…still, I never would have imagined that your father was this impressive. He must be quite the merchant, huh?”

Barley sat up. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel any pain or dizziness at all. It seemed he could move around normally, as well.

John looked rather embarrassed, “well, er, um. Actually…” he looked over at Franz, who sighed.

“All right, he did save your life, after all. And he answered truthfully to every question, so I suppose we can consider this his reward.”

Franz cleared his throat, and put away a blue gem that he had been fiddling with in his hands.

What is that!? A truth detector or something!? Barley exclaimed in his heart. But he put the matter aside as he listened to Franz's introduction.

“May I present his highness, Prince Jean Luke, crown prince of Grayelle kingdom. For saving his life, we would have rewarded you richly,” Franz glared at Prince Jean Luke.

“But this idiot already used an extremely rare and costly life-saving elixir to save your life. Since that was the only one that we had, we now have nothing to use in case a successful assassination attempt.”

“Prince Jean, you…” Barley couldn’t speak. He motioned Prince Jean to come closer.

“What is it? Are you touched by my generosity?” The boke prince leaned closer.

Barley knocked him on the head. Hard.

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?! No, I already knew that! But still! How far does your stupidity reach!!” He yelled. “You couldn’t have simply called upon a healer to use a few heal spells?! It was just a few broken bones and a concussion! Yeah, sure, it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t like I was going to die immediately!”

“Ouch! I’m sorry! I should have done so, but I panicked!” Prince Jean was still a stupid boke prince after all.

“If you’re sorry then make up for it! Now that I’m involved in all of this, how the heck do you think I can leave you alone, now! I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’ve beaten some common sense into that boke brain of yours! Be prepared! You’re not allowed to go out of my sight from now on!”

Prince John flinched. “Yes! I’ll help you leave quietly-wait…what?”

Franz chuckled. “Well, you’re an odd one. Once people find out that he’s a prince, they usually try to run away from it all. And we are in need of a bodyguard at the moment.” He sighed. “Our last one was turned into a parakeet when he angered a witch in passing.”

“Why a parakeet?” Barley asked getting up out of the bed. That rare elixir had done its work, All his wounds had been healed. He felt better than he had ever felt before, in fact.

“Probably to demonstrate how much of a bird-brain she thought him to be.” Franz said. “But, keep in mind, once you take up the bodyguard position, you’ll need to take some proper training so that you can hold your own in a fight, and not die from a sword to the back.”

Barley thought for a bit. “When do we start?” He asked.

Franz grinned. “Immediately.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thera stared into the jungle, as she ran, annoyed.

They had actually left the kingdom, heading into the no-man land of the jungle wilds. As soon as they arrived, Master Thales had asked her to exhaust as much of her mana as possible.

Thera had done so by lifting a great rock that looked like a dinosaur egg, for one hour, only using magic.

Laura was impressed, because the rock was bigger than her mansion four times over.

After nearly completely exhausting her MP, The Ranger clamped a weird bracelet on Thera’s arm, which immediately locked itself. The bracelet closed her off from the outside mana source, effectively sealing her magic spells.

Now she could only proceed through the jungle based upon her physical attributes, alone.

Well, Thera had understood why Master Thales had done so. If Thera continued to rely upon her magic spells to get things done, then she wouldn’t necessarily understand the truths of the physical world.

Subsequently, when she reached black class, she would find herself at a disadvantage when fighting those who had understood fully at least one of these truths.

As far as quantity goes, Thera had an awful lot of raw power. However, as far as quality goes, it was like the difference between a barbarian and a swordsman. Raw power may get you far, but knowledge and techniques get you farther.

But still, to have Thera run straight through to the other side of the jungle in a single day, it was pretty taxing.

There were also wild beasts, poisonous and carnivorous plants, and the natural terrain to deal with, making it impossible to travel in a straight line.

Just as she was distracted while sulking, the ground moved under her feet. She just so happened to step on the tail of a large cat beast, which was lying stretched out, asleep. The beast’s eyes snapped open as it roared in pain.

Oh crap! Thera thought as she started running away from the angered cat beast.

It was a king-class Thunder Cat. While the power level of its strikes were much less powerful than that of a dragon, its speed was almost emperor-class, making it just exactly the kind of beast you wouldn’t want to run into.

The beast roared in anger as it chased after Thera.

Thera ran as fast as she could, rebounding off of trees to increase her speed as she strove to outrun the Thunder Cat.

Even though she was fast, the Thunder Cat was faster. It snaked through the trees at a lightning speed, quickly catching up to Thera.

It jumped at her, sparks jumping off its claws as it swiped at her shoulder. Thera only just managed to dodge the claws, but she couldn’t dodge the lightning sparks that jumped to her shoulder, making it numb.

You’ve gotta be kidding me! She shouted inwardly. Even if she dodged successfully, if she got hit with a few more of those electric attacks, then she would probably soon end up too numb to move.

Thera kept running, but this time, she readied her needles. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

If she couldn’t touch it, then she’d just have to kill it with something that wasn’t connected to her body.

Projectiles were perfect for the job, but, since the Thunder Cat was faster than her, she needed to time this right.

The Thunder Cat launched itself at her again. She quickly threw her needles, aiming at its eyes. It snorted and swiped the needles out of the air.

 But that movement served to interrupt its attack, and so it flew by Thera without landing an attack on her, its sparking claws not close enough to give an electric attack.

A dozen or so of these stalemate attacks happened as Thera deflected the Thunder Cat, all while running.

The Thunder Cat’s main weapon was its speed. Thera narrowed her eyes. What determined speed? In videogame rpgs, speed was dependent upon a stat called ‘agility’. Then, agility is what determined speed?

As Thera had run, she also observed how the Thunder Cat ran, swerving around the trees like how water swirls around a rock in a stream. Her own speed was hampered by the numerous trees and the terrain, but the Thunder Cat’s speed wasn’t hampered at all.

Agility…was what allowed a player to dodge attacks, right? There had to be some trick behind it!

Thera grit her teeth as she paid even closer attention to the Thunder Cat’s movements.