Leaving the Elder’s home, Arn found the main street crowded, and soon drew a staring crowed. No longer caring what people thought, he kept walking, addressing the crowd in a raised voice. “Woo boy dying is really something let me tell you. Got a legendary class too. But now I’m headed home to take a bath. Someone be helpful and run and tell Talia to join me alright?” Gasps of shock and disgust came from the crowd, but no one moved to stop him as he dodged and kept walking. “What? She is the reason I died, twice in fact, you can ask the Elder about that. The least she could do for getting me killed twice is wash my back don’t you think?”

Just when he thought he was clear, Joshua stepped in front of him with a fist raised. “Apologize, admit you’re a liar, or I’ll beat you senseless.” In a steady voice, Arn said “Show Joshua Status.” Arn paused and continued only when Joshua’s eyes widened. “Now you have 5 seconds to get out of my cursed way, or I will rip your flesh from your bones and eat it. If you survive, maybe you’ll gain the Tasty Achievement.“ Joshua paled and quickly stepped out of his way.

Arn sighed. I shouldn’t have done that. My big mouth is what got me into this situation in the first place. But curse it all, what do I care? The village doesn’t want me, I’ll forge my own bloody path. Arn barged into his large empty house, his parents’ final gift before the plague took them, and headed for the tub. Alone of the houses in the village, the house had a large cistern, and taking a bath, albeit often a very cold one, was easy. As Arn slipped into the cold water, he tried to clear his head and relax, but the slobbering gaping jaws of the warg kept intruding.

* * *

Elder Dannis greeted Arn with a wave. “Ah, welcome back! Good, good, you don’t smell like a warg’s supper anymore, we can eat. Sit, sit we’ll talk while I cook. Now that you’ve had some time to think, what do you see as your options?”

Arn realized he hadn’t thought about his future a lick. “I’m sorry Elder, but I died twice and was literally eaten. I can’t think straight. Please just tell me what you think? I…ugh, value your opinion and knowledge and would really appreciate it.”

Elder Dannis rolled his eyes. “Tut, tut, I’m not a turkey’s behind, you don’t need to butter me. But ok, to start we know that legendary classes require a massive amount of experience to level, but they usually have a work around to make it at least possible to level reasonably normal-ish. Here, it seems you have to get experience while injured, preferably while almost dead. Um, not ideal, obviously, but hey, you unlocked Pain Resistance, right? It won’t be so bad! You’ll get used to it. Probably. And … I guess you’ll save money on armor. But I’m getting side tracked! So we know your class is steering you towards being a front line fighter. Smart man would think join the army, settle down in a base somewhere, get a nice fat wife, but remember with your class your not going to gain many levels training in a barracks or running the occasional beast suppression mission. So you are either a private for a longgg time, or maybe given the legendary class the army is willing to power level you. That might sound good, but … just no. They would make you sign up for triple the normal four-year minimum, maybe more. And power leveling is not something the army normally does, so probably the highest chance of dying quickly. So not the army. With me?”

Arn nodded. “Can’t say as I thought about joining the army. Or know what the heck power leveling is. But I’ll trust your experience.”

Dannis nodded. “Power leveling is basically helpers herding up, but not injuring, a whole bunch of beasts like a pack of wargs. The herders funnel the beasts into a natural or man-made area that narrows into a corridor so someone like you can fight them one at a time. Which is great in theory, and you do regenerate. But something always goes wrong. The fencing breaks. One jumps over, runs past, whatever. You get stunned by a lucky hit. Whoever they have watching is too slow. Maybe not the first time, the second or the third. But especially with your being able to resurrect once a day, that will make them careless, and at some point they go way to fast, make too many mistakes and something will rip off your head entirely. There are places where power leveling is done right, the high nobility doesn’t do anything the hard way of course, but the army is not one of them.”

Arn nodded again. “Makes sense.”

“Right. So I think your looking at joining a team delving into ancient ruins or hunting in the southern jungles. The delving teams, the ones that don’t just die horribly anyway, tend to want more experience and levels to start, whereas there are a lot of teams that go monster hunting and herb gathering on the edges of the jungle to build themselves up. Usually, a team or two of young people form up at the Spring Festival. Not the brand new classers mind you, we can usually stop that kind of stupid, but young folks that have had their class for a year or two and want to go off and adventure. So, a bunch of young fools that think a year of being a guard or a game hunter prepares them for anything. Better way to die than find glory, but hey, every now and then some come back and buy an inn or whatnot. So, what do you think?”

A lot of young people dreamed of becoming adventurers. For as long as he could remember, Arn, however, dreamed of being useful, and not being kicked out of the village. Although his parents had left him the nicest house in the village when they died, village law was clear. If he wasn’t able to take a class useful to the village at the Spring Festival during his 16th year, he would be forced to leave, and the house would revert to the village. With his heart problems, he always knew there wouldn’t be many choices, so he had worked hard to boost his intelligence with good results, and tried, with much more limited success, to boost his dexterity. But it hadn’t been enough – there was no call for scholars or scribes in a small village, and the professions that seemed logical, like herbalist, had sons and daughters as apprentices or were otherwise taken.

I have a legendary class. And the village still thinks I’m worthless. “I’ll do it.”

“Good! Now, we only have a little over three weeks to get you ready. Most of the young people looking to form a team, they will be level five to eight or so, but they will have years of training and serious skills in swordsmanship, archery, tracking and a dozen other things. I won’t lie to you Arn … to get you ready is going to be the most unpleasant, most painful three weeks of your life. It will make the warg eating your intestines seem like a picnic. Err, well I guess it was a picnic. For the warg. Where was I…”

Arg tried to wrap things up. “Got it. I’m ready. No problem.” Elder Dannis seized on Arn’s words. “No problem??? I don’t think you understand the world of hurt we are talking about. You CAN do it, if you want it badly enough. If you quit on me, its the army. So what if you are a private for a decade, eventually maybe you’ll make Sergeant and be able to afford moving out of the barracks, getting a wife. It’s a life. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“ARE YOU SURE?”

“YES!”

“Ok, great, but we’ll see if you mean it. I have some thoughts on those skills, but we can’t worry about those right now. Your combat related attributes are a LOT lower than others your age, but with your heart fixed, and … with a special strategy I have in mind, we can get your stats up. BUT YOU CAN’T ASSIGN A SINGLE POINT UNTIL I TELL YOU. If you assign points, it becomes that much harder to improve them for free. We’ll spend about a week getting your stats up as a first step. Go home, go to sleep, I’ll get things lined up and we’ll start at sunrise.”

As Arn left, Dannis put his face in his hands. What have I done? I promised his parents I’d take care of him, and now this madness. Can I really torture him for three weeks straight and send him off with this year’s group of suicidal idiots??? Dannis breathed deeply to calm himself. The truth was the truth; suddenly healthy and with a legendary class, there was no way to steer Arn to a safer path. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll quit the training and take the army route. And live a safe, unremarkable life. But…he is stubborn as a mule, and with a start like this, dying twice and getting this accursed class…not likely.