Ash woke up the next morning with a stiff neck, but feeling otherwise better than he had in years. After stretching out and again enjoying his new sense of mobility, Ash pushed the door open and checked his surroundings. The pre-dawn morning showed a shadowy landscape, but other than the occasional bird song, he didn’t notice anything.

Staff in hand, Ash went back to the creek and decided to follow it until he could eventually find a road. After a few hours, the creek merged into a river and began flowing in a new direction. Figuring that the river had to lead somewhere, he kept on walking. By the time he finally found a road, it was nothing more than a dirt track and the sun was already at its zenith. To keep himself entertained, he continued playing around with his Sleight of Hand as he walked while singing some marching cadences to himself.

Not long after finding the road, Ash was practicing his item teleport with the stones he’d gathered, chucking them into the air as he walked and snapping them back on their decent, when he missed one and it skipped into some tall reeds. The stone landed with a wet thud, which was promptly followed by a deep, bone rumbling growl.

“Ah, that’s probably not good.”

Suddenly what looked like a massive toad covered in brown muck lept out of the reeds, its tongue lashing out several feet in front it, covered in barbs.

“Well, damn.”

The tongue whirled around in front of it like a runaway firehose, but the beast itself seemed to move slowly except for when it jumped. Ash looked back down the road he’d come from and realized there was no way to go but forward. And if that meant going through a three hundred pound toad, then so be it.

“You know, a fireball spell would be really useful right about now.” Ash snapped his staff back into his hands with a sigh as his mask faded onto his face. “Don’t suppose I can convince you to join me in a waltz? I’m told I have a skill for dancing.” A low, blood curdling croak followed by another aggressive leap was his only answer. “Is that a maybe?”

With one more massive leap, the muddy toad put itself within a dangerous range, it’s tongue darting out and slapping into the ground only a few feet in front of Ash, who danced back, staff at the ready. The nebulous form of his Infinity Masque fogged his vision for a split second before his movements quicken with its boost. He tried skirting around the side of the monster, whose tongue continued to strike at him. Even though it could leap a dozen meters, the toad struggled to rotate its cumbersome body.

Ash slammed his staff down onto the monster’s head, but it landed with a thud and sunk into the mud coating its entire body. His attack was answered with another bone rumbling croak, the tongue snaking around and striking out. Ash barely managed to evade, trying to keep to the rear of the creature as he continued to slam his staff down over and over.

“This is getting me nowhere,” he said in a frustrated growl. “That filth is blocking everything… Hm, I wonder…” Ash danced in close to the toad, raising one hand and chanting a quick incantation. “Be clean.” A white cloud of mist flowed out of his hand and began to swallow up the toad, blocking it from view. Ash looked on as the tongue continued to slash around outside the cotton candy cloud. After a moment, the toad’s persistant rumble became almost panicked. When the mist vanished, the muck was completely absent from the toad’s body, leaving it’s skin visible, which was thin and semi-transparent.

Seeing his opportunity, Ash ran back in. This time, when his staff came down, the toad popped like an overfilled water balloon before breaking down into ashen motes, a flash of white light and the clinking of crystal following its destruction, which he snapped up.

“Oh that’s nasty.” Ash groaned, stumbling back as the scent hit him despite the beast fading away. “I think I might be sick.”

[You have defeated Mudlord]

[You have obtained Imperfect Mana Crystal - Quartz]

******

A few hours later, he was starting to stagger as he walked down the dirt road, his stomach growling fiercely. Looking down the road, he saw the landscape break up as the open grounds were replaced with the neat rows of planted crops.

“Sweet civilization, thank goodness. Now for the hard part, talking to strangers. Killing monsters is easier than small talk.”

Despite his apprehensions, a smile played across his face and he started walking towards the farm. He considered seeing if he could use his Sleight of Hand to snag one of the ears of corn he could see, but decided that stealing from the first person he met would probably leave him with some bad karma or something, and if gods are real, he didn’t want to risk it.

As he got closer, he heard a commotion and picked up his pace. When he got closer, he saw two more of the Mudlords moving towards a farmhouse as a man sat on his roof shooting arrows down at them and trying to scare them off by yelling.

Ash ran closer, keeping the toads at a distance but calling out to the farmer.

“Hello up there. Looks like you could use a little help.”

The farmer, whose attention had been, quite reasonably, locked onto the large threatening toads, almost toppled off the roof at the sudden appearance of a new voice. At the same time, Ash’s voice drew the attention of the closer of the two Mudlords, which let out the eerie, bone rumbling croak he was now familiar with.

“Get out of here!” The farmer called down at him. “They may seem slow, but these things are dangerous.” As if it had been waiting for the farmer’s warning, the closer toad lept, soaring a dozen meters through the air and landing half the distance to Ash, tongue already lashing.

“I don’t want to snake your kills, but if you don’t mind, I’ll give it a whack.” He laughed at his own pun as the toad made a second leap right at him. Ash danced to the side before the toad could land, his mask forming and boosting his agility and speed. “Excuse me, sir, I am in the middle of a conversation.” The Mudlord’s tongue lashed out at him, but he skirted off to the side and ran around to the toad’s rear. “Ya nasty bastards need a bath. Be clean.” The white cloud of his Cleansing Mist encased the toad. Its vision obscured, the toad’s tongue went wild as it tried to find its target.

Looking around him, Ash found a line of large stones bordering the walkway up to the farmhouse. He dismissed his staff and ran up to the largest one he could potentially lift and, with a large burst of mana, teleported it away. A few seconds later, the stone, which had been teleported dozens of meters up into the air, came rocketing down, landing on top of the newly clean, transparent toad, rupturing the large amphibian.

Ash didn’t wait though, he was already running towards the remaining toad, which noticed his approach and turned towards him aggressively. “Be clean,” Ash chanted as soon as he was close enough, barely dodging the tongue, stumbling back and almost tripping. Snapping his staff back into his hands, he brought it down just as the cloud was dissipating, popping the second toad and covering his feet with disgusting toad goo before it vanished into ash.

“I really wish Morgan had given me shoes in addition to a robe.” He grimaced at the nastiness that still remained on his feet and the hem of his robe. “Be clean. Somehow, this is my best ability, and honestly, not that mad about it.”

[You have defeated Mudlord x2]

[You have obtained Imperfect Mana Crystal - Quartz x2]

Ash looked back up at the farmer. “Are you alright up there? Is anyone in the household injured or in need of help?”

“No,” the farmer called out. “It’s just me here at the moment. Give me a second, I’ll come down.”

A few minutes later, the farmer ran out to shake Ash’s hand, hesitating for only a brief second to stare at Ash’s face before vigorously before shepherding into a quant little farmhouse.

“The name’s Rufus. I really appreciate the help. Those cranky bastards might not have been able to reach me, but they are notorious for property and crop damage. That’s fancy face covering you have there, by the way.”

Ash touched the smooth cool crystal that covered his face, before dismissing it and offering the farmer a friendly smile. “Nice to meet you, Rufus. You can call me Ash.” Before he could say anything further, he was interrupted by a loud growling coming from his midriff. “Ah, that’s embarrassing.”

Rufus chuckled and guided him towards a wooden table that Ash couldn’t help but admire; whomever had carved it did so with care and passion. “Please, sit. Least I can do is give you a nice meal as a sign of thanks.”

“I really appreciate that. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days. I was actually on my here because I was hoping to buy some stuff from you while passing by. I’m just glad I was able to help.”

“Well don’t you worry,” Rufus said cheerfully. “I’ll get you fed and even send you off with some stuff. If you hadn’t come along, they would have ravished the fields. I’ll give you as much as you can carry.”

“I won’t hold you to that. I’m not exactly sure how much I can carry, but I assume it’s probably a lot more than you’d expect,” Ash said. “I have a storage that’s pretty new; I’m not sure what it’s limits are.”

Rufus laughed at the notion. “Those are rare, you’re a lucky man. What is your class, if you don’t mind me asking? Some sort of warrior?” Ash grimaced internally at the question, but kept a pleasant smile on his face.

“Sadly, no. My class is a,” he hesitated slightly, “performer of sorts. But I’m hoping to get that changed to a combat class if it’s possible. There are… expectations that have been placed on me.”

“Family pressures? I’ve been there. Well you are a very capable performer, that’s for sure. It must be necessary when travelling these back roads.” Rufus nodded knowingly before heading into the kitchen. “You definitely seem to have the skills for a combat role. I’m sure you’ll be able to get one when you reach your next crystal state,” he called back to Ash. Ash had no idea what he meant by that, but Rufus had said it so matter-of-factly that he didn’t want to draw attention to himself with his ignorance of common knowledge. Not until he got a better idea of this world and its dangers, monsters and otherwise. “Worse comes to worst, I doubt any city guard would look at someone your size and turn them away.”

“Here’s hoping,” Ash replied in a noncommittal tone.

A few minutes later, Rufus came out holding a large plate of roasted vegetables, a sizable chunk of bread, and a large wedge of cheese. Ash was silent as he dug into the food with a vigor, Rufus filling the silence by talking about his life. Ash figured the man might be a little lonely out here on his own, jumping from one topic to the next. Ash was happy to let him talk. Every bit of information he could get about this world, the better.

“We never use to get those toads around here. In fact, back in my nan’s day, any monster manifestation was rare. And those they did get were more of a pest than a danger. Seems like the world is tilting towards Chaos these days. But, that’s just the way of things I suppose. Things keep sliding that way, the roads might not be safe anymore. Of course we do ge the occasional adventurer scouting the area, but if anything important comes up, it’s days before they can reach us.”

When his plate was polished off, Ash and Rufus moved to the sitting room and continued their conversation. After two days of trudging around in his bare feet, sleeping and sitting on rocks and logs, the overstuffed armchair he sunk into felt like heaven.

“Rufus, this chair is wonderful.”

“Isn’t it though? My da had that made, oh, some fifty years prior. And a little love and care keeps it feeling brand new. Had a tear in it some years back, Betsy, she’s the nearest Seamstress, had it fixed up in a few flicks of her hand. It’s always good to know a talented Seamstress I always say. So what are you doing in the middle of nowhere? As much as I love my farm, you’re days away from anything.”

“It’s a little awkward. I seem to have been accidentally teleported into the middle of nowhere. To be honest, I’m not quite sure where we are, but I do know that we’re very far from where I was previously.” Ash tried to think of a way to explain away some of his ignorances without outright claiming to be an alien. Knowing exactly how people would react to that on his world, he didn’t want to risk a similar negative reaction quite yet. “It’s been an interesting couple days, to say the least.”

“Well, I certainly don’t envy your circumstances. That being said, I’m grateful that it happened. Tell you what, you can take the guest room tonight, and tomorrow I’ll point you towards the closest city and load you up with some supplies to get there.”

“That is incredibly generous of you, not sleeping on the ground again sounds lovely.” Ash smiled at the kind farmer, but scouted out the house’s escape routes, just in case. Helpfully, a weapon was always within reach since he kept his staff in his inventory when he wasn’t using it.

The next morning, Rufus loaded Ash up with more of the vegetables, bread, and cheese that he’d eaten the night before.

“You’ll find the nearest city, Prismar, - lovely city, I sell my crops there, great people. Anyways, it’s about three days that way.” Rufus pointed down the road in the same direction Ash had been heading the day before. “This road meets up with the larger thoroughfare about halfway there, and that road goes straight to Prismar.”

“You’re a good man, Rufus. I appreciate everything you’ve done to help me. If I end up back in this area, I’ll be sure to repay the favor.”Rufus laughed at Ash’s awkward show of humility.

“You seem to be forgetting, you’re the one who helped me.”

“Well you have my appreciation none the less. I hope the rest of this area proves to be as welcoming,” Ash said. “May Morgan grant you happiness, whomever and wherever she be.” Rufus looked at him quizzically. “She’s a friend. Even gave me this robe.”

Ash shook Rufus’s hand once more and headed off, happy with his first non-deified interaction in this new place. And even happier to know he won’t be forced to skip any more meals over the next couple of days.

“Alright Ash, food has been acquired. Next milestone, find some shoes.”