I moved quickly in the general direction that I had memorized from Ayesha’s map. Like she said, there weren't any man-made paths, but it was pretty simple following the paths of other monsters. They left areas just wide enough for two people to stand abreast. However, I was leading the way, and Eliquis was following behind me very timidly. I sighed to myself knowing that there was no way I could keep her with me at this rate. She was quickly becoming a burden, jumping at any noise she heard, and she was tripping over roots and small rocks without fail. The only thing I could commend her for was her endurance and equilibrium. I mean, no matter how often she tripped, she never actually fell. She always somehow righted herself mid air, with her feet flatly on the ground. I was pretty amazed since there was no way I could handle something like that. But all things considered, that’s the limit of her abilities.

I began occupying my thoughts with ways of finding a place to drop her off that was somewhat safe and continuing my personal search for answers when we finally got to the stream that Aeyesha pointed out before. I stopped just before exiting the thicket, taking a long, hard look at the area around the stream, but Eliquis kept moving towards it. I was going to follow her when suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood at end.

Enemy. My thoughts vanished and were replaced with thoughts of analyzing my body’s natural reactions. Just one, to the left. Seems like I should be able to handle it.

I quickly put my hand around Eliquis’s mouth and brought my lips to her ears, shushing her. Then I slowly and quietly guided her back into the thicket, while whispering words of encouragement to prevent her from freaking out. Once we were safely covered by the thicket on all sides, I moved her to lean her back against a tree and helped guide her slowly to a sitting position.

“There’s something near us,” I whispered as quietly as possible, waiting for her response. Her eyes went wide, like she was expecting a different reason for me grabbing her like that, but I ignored her expression and put my focus on whatever was near us.

Eliquis looked in the direction I was looking at and she nodded. I quickly patted myself gently so as to not make a noise, while confirming the exact position of my weapons. Short sword on my waist, left side. Dagger on my waist right side. Knife on my leg, left side. Regular sized sword on my back, hilt over my right shoulder. Okay,, now let’s confirm the surroundings and see if I can spot the target.

I stepped forward, while maintaining my crouching position, and peeked around the branches in front of me. There was some sort of massive lizard moving towards the water. However, something felt strange about the lizard in front of me. Were lizards always four meters long? Did they always have eight legs? I kept my thoughts short and simple, as I analyzed it as quickly as possible. Tail is thick. Doesn’t move quickly. Seems to be scared since it’s constantly checking its surroundings. Hasn’t noticed us yet. Nine meters away. At the angle it's moving, it will be three meters away at the closest distance.

I steadied my breathing and motioned for Eliquis to stay where she was. I kept checking our surroundings in the meantime, listening to the lizard’s movements. Nothing else in the area. Kill the target, take what’s needed, and leave the scene before the blood attracts other creatures. I quickly went over my next course of action like it was a mission. Figure out why I’m thinking like this later. Focus on the target.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. I leapt out of the thicket and dashed straight ahead towards my target. I was angled at its rear most right leg, so it had to stop and turn to see me, in order to assess the situation. However, before it could judge whether or not I was a threat worth running from, my hands were already moving. My left hand had already pulled out the knife from its sheath on my leg, and tossed it over to my right hand, which just whipped it in the direction of the lizard. So when the lizard had turned its head, its eye was in the direct path of the knife, which hit its mark instantly.

The lizard made a weird shrieking noise, but I was already prepared for that. I was aiming to silence it before it attracted other creatures. I dove under the lizard, brandishing the longsword, but letting my body slide uncomfortably for a half a second, before thrusting the blade through its neck. It struggled for the rest of what was left of that second before it fell, with me guiding it to fall on its side, so it didn’t crush me. I abandoned the long sword in the lizard and put my hand on the hilt of the short sword. Using the lizard as cover to hide me from one direction, I quickly analyzed my surroundings. Once I had confirmed it was safe, I motioned for Eliquis to join me over here, and quickly pulled the longsword out of the lizard. I quickly cut four of the legs off and wiped the blade clean, then grabbed Eliquis’s hand and sped up our pace up stream. There was no reason to stick around there.

As we walked upstream, I realized that the body of water got wider and deeper, the further upstream we went. It must’ve branched off somewhere creating that stream. I wish I had paid better attention back there, I thought to myself. After speed walking for almost an hour, we eventually came up to the weird rocks that Ayesha had mentioned earlier. The rocks were strangely entirely cube shaped and spread out between the river bed on the side we were on, in the river, and on the other side of the river. Some sort of unnatural bridge? Maybe just a way of marking a location? Doesn’t matter, I guess. Somewhere around here should be a good spot to rest. Without stopping, I moved to the other side of the rocks to look for a place to sit down for a bit, however, what I got in return was more perplexing.

Once we passed the rocks, my body stopped midstep. I tried to struggle but it was no use. I looked behind me to Eliquis to see how she was fairing, but my head wouldn’t move. I strained my eyes to look at her, and it seemed like she was frozen in time. Panicking slightly, I checked my surroundings to see that even droplets of water from the river were stopped in time as well.

What the-?

[]

Conditions? That was the only thought that I could muster based on what the mechanical voice had said. The voice not only sent shivers down my spine, but it also felt reassuring, as if I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life. What is this? What is this feeling?

[]

And with that, time flowed back to normal and I took the step I had been in the process of making beforehand, but stopped. Eliquis also stopped, but she tilted her head slightly in confusion. I looked around and quickly spotted a cave, so I motioned for Eliquis to follow me over there. The cave wasn’t deep at all and it didn’t look like it was in use for any monsters or animals. The entrance to it was only about a meter wide, and two meters tall, but the inside was about seven meters in diameter- a perfect circle. I pushed thoughts of a coincidence out of my mind and took up a spot in the cave, on my immediate right. Here, I could see if anything got near us from the woods, or around the weird stones in front of us before it could see me. So, it was a perfect position for me to put my thoughts together over what had happened before.

Eliquis, sat to my right and stared at me while I began piecing things together. I somehow felt relieved when that voice spoke to me, but at the same time it scared me. What was it, and why was I afraid of it? Ok, nothing is coming to mind but useless thoughts, so let’s move on from there. Base program downloaded and installed? What is a program exactly? I feel like part of me knows the answer, but it burns to think about it so let’s push that question aside. It downloaded and installed? Yeah, that’s not bringing much answers either. It also seemed like it cut off when it said to survive. And it also said to ‘meet us’, which means there’s more than one thing out there watching my movements. These two pieces seem like there’s some sort of fight I somehow got involved in. So was I relieved when I realized they survived? Wait, are those visions...or memories connected to this? Ok, nothing useful with that information. What else did it say? Well, there was that weird beeping noise that drowned out whatever it said in the beginning and… Oh, something about corruption being accepted. Corruption? Let’s see...

As my thoughts passed about ten thousand per second, I eventually gave up and closed my eyes. Eliquis pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them, glancing over at me every now and then.

“Oh, the class system was downloaded,” I muttered under my breath.

“The what did what?” Eliquis asked.

“Can you start a fire?” I asked, purposely ignoring her. She looked stunned but got to starting a fire with the firewood that was conveniently placed in this cave. Yeah, something was guiding me here for this moment, so I better prepare myself quickly. I doubt that whatever is watching me will protect me forever.

I closed my eyes and focused, then brought up an almost translucent placard of some sort in front of me. It was about fifty centimeters wide and sixty long. But it displayed information that brought up more questions than answers. The Class System, I thought to myself as I studied it.

I see. I guess HP and MP should be obvious, but what’s CMP? And STM is stamina? Why are these represented in numbers? Can’t people be killed if they’re caught off guard? Oh, I guess I another screen will pop up if I touch the area in question. Oh, Corrupted Mana? Ability Points? Oh there’s a class tree? Well, it’s more of a sphere than a tree and the only one I can see there is Freelancer. So, I guess I’ll have to find the conditions to unlock them? Also looks like there’s a list of skills available.

GAREM

lv.1

HP: 11 (+1)

MP: 11 (+1)

STM: 4

CMP: 0

HPR: 1

MPR: 1

AP: 3

STR: 3

END: 2

VIT: 9

FREELANCER

lv.1

INT: 1

WIS: 9

DEX: 5

ABILITIES:

Mana Corruption I

Allows for the creation of 1 CMP for every 10 MP spent.

Bran I

Allows for companions to use the Skillboard and Corrupted Class System up to Tier 2.

The Bran can only be placed on up to 6 people and cannot be removed until the Caster dies.

Costs 1 CMP to place a Bran on someone.

Mana Blade (weak)

Creates a weak Mana Blade for 3 CMP (+6 DMG)

→ Can Strengthen Mana Blade for 1 CMP (+1 DMG) [4 times max]

Skill Slot I

Allows for up to a total of 2 skills from any Class to be used in this Class.

Bran Upgrade I

Allows the Bran to be placed on up to an additional 24 targets.

Allows for the Bran to be placed on Monsters

→ Monsters under the Bran can go under an evolution up to three times, as long as the natural hierarchy system remains. Only a total of 6 monster species may have the bran.

“This is making more questions than necessary,” I sighed to myself.

“What is?” Eliquis asked.

“Not sure how to explain it- oh the fires going. Here, let’s cook these up for now, and refill the water containers Raven gave us.”

Eliquis fidgeted with her fingers for a moment, before taking the legs of the lizard and looking for a way to cook them. I sighed and took a look at the list of available skills one more time and decided to make some decisions. Everything uses CMP, so obviously Mana Corruption is a must. I’ll test it out while I’m eating, I guess. Skill Slot is useless without other classes, so I’ll ignore it. Bran upgrade only works if I have Bran, so I need to get both together, and it’s not like I need to forge a weapon right now, since I have a few. I guess I can hold off on the Mana Blade. I clicked on the abilities I wanted and they appeared in slots under [ABILITIES] in the Class System. Simple enough, I guess. But testing anything will take all of the MP I have, and my MPR is only one at the moment. So it will take almost an hour to recover all the MP I use in this test.

“Eliquis, do you mind if I change our plans?”

“Huh?”

“I know I said I would get you somewhere safe, but I need to test a few things beforehand, to make sure I can keep protecting you.”

Eliquis looked away from me for a few minutes, poking at the fire with a stick before she finally spoke, “If you teach me how to fight, can I still follow you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re trying to send me somewhere because you always have to protect me, right? So… if I learn how to fight, you don’t need to throw me away, right?”

“So that’s how it looks to you,” I sighed and leaned back against the wall of the cave. Well, you are throwing her away no matter which way you look at it. You saved her, which makes her your problem, so in the end you can’t expect her to cling onto someone else. These thoughts brought a knot in my stomach that somehow felt familiar, but I fought through my uneasiness and agreed to her terms under a single condition, “If you can’t keep up, I’m leaving you behind.”

While eating I decided to run a test experiment, and quickly regretted it. I concentrated and activated the [Mana Corruption] ability. Pale blue light filtered off of my body and turned into a black goop that wrapped itself around my left wrist like a sleeve. But immediately, I fell to my side and started to convulse for a few minutes watching my MP. when it finally reached 3, I recovered slightly but wasn’t quite able to focus properly.

Okay, it’s dangerous to let my MP fall below thirty percent. Duly noted.

Eliquis watched the whole event unfold with fear in her eyes. But eventually, I pushed myself back up to a sitting position and leaned against the wall, waving at her to let her know that I was ok. “I was just testing something, don’t worry about it.”

She nodded and hurried to finish the leg of the lizard before looking at me with anticipation. Once she was done, I took her to the back of the cave, away from the fire and stood in front of her, looking her over. “Is there something wrong?”

“Not really,” I took in a deep breath and tried to organize my thoughts, remembering feelings and lessons from various distant memories that were just out of reach, but this somehow felt familiar, and the words started flowing to me naturally. “Do you know what’s important for fighting?”

“Strength?” When I shook my head, Eliquis thought some more before throwing out a few more answers. “Speed? Ability? Um… Talent? Practice? What?”

“Knowledge. You can’t do anything properly without knowledge,” I slid my foot under a nearby stick and kicked it up, then caught it with my right hand. “As I continued talking, I walked around in a circle poking different parts of her body to emphasize the topic. “Why are your legs more powerful than your arms? How do the muscles move? What are your joints for, exactly? Why do you need to eat slowly? Why are certain foods better for you than others? Do you know how many muscles are actually in your back and shoulders? Do you understand how and why they move the way they do? What about your ears? And can you actually use your eyes properly? There’s a lot to know and understand when it comes to fighting. I will teach you as much as I can, but ultimately, you’ll have to learn on the fly, since I have my own goals to pursue. That is, assuming you’re still going to follow me no matter what?”

Eliquis nodded and focused on the questions I had previously asked her, but I continued without letting her try to answer any of them. “First, we’ll focus on what skills you do have while we do some muscle training. Well, they're more exercises than training, but it will feel like training at first. My style of teaching isn’t meant for individuals, but groups of people, sorry to say. So you won’t feel the full effect of my training unless we can get at least four others to join us. But I think this is fine for now.”

I showed Eliquis the basic forms for push ups and sit ups then left her to do them while I checked the Class System one more time. It says I’m level one, which means that leveling up should increase my MP. Right now it's both dangerous and not dangerous to increase my CMP, but the pros outweigh the cons, as long as we’re not in a position to get attacked, since my MPR recovers MP by 1 every six minutes. Ok, so once every hour should be fine, right? Checking and rechecking the limited information I did have a few times I decided it would be best to collect no less than six CMP while helping to prepare Eliquis for the training. These should just be stretches, but she’s really struggling here...