“Any bets on what it will be?” he asked, as he looked into the shadows of the fourth arch.

  Gift chimed in his bow form, holding him at the ready Alicia replied, “It's not going to be an archery range.”

  Gift chimed again. “A ‘target’ range is the same thing.” Chime, “Yes, I am sure you will get a chance to show off.” Alicia huffed.

  “Are you two ready, or do you need more time?” Syl said, unable to hide her amusement.

  “Sorry,” Alicia smiled, “he is looking forward to having another chance at showing you two what he has learnt.”

  Syl gestured towards the fourth arch, “After you, meat su-“

  Kai jumped on Syls tired pun saying, “Don’t you think that’s getting a little old.”

  “Stop dawdling all the time and I wont get a chance to say it so much,” Syl chastised him.

  He let out a breath and stepped through.

  Another forest, “What is it with this dungeon and forests? Why can it not spice things up a little? Like a cave, a castle or an actual castle dungeon, I might actually go for an honest to god water level, at least at this point it would be different.”

  “Ssh, don’t jinx us,” Syl hissed. “I, for one, am perfectly happy with a nice temperate forest and not some dank wet cave or freezing mountaintop. We’re not exactly equipped for anything but moderate conditions.”

  Alicia gave an uh-huh in agreement as she spun, Gift up and ready ready as she checked for any threats.

  Kai looked about. “To be fair, I think we're on a road that just happens to go through a forest, that’s kind of different. But it raises a question, which way are we meant to go?”

  Standing on a wide stretch of compacted dirt, with trees and dense thorny bushes to either side of them, their options seemed limited to this way or that. Unless, of course, they wanted to risk struggling through the thick undergrowth.

  Syl pointed down the road to the nearest point it curved away from them, “I think we are about to find out, there is someone approaching from that direction.”

  Kai pulled his hilt free as Alicia stepped off to the side to give her a better line of attack.

  Syl just folded her hands across her chest and waited.

  Kai didn’t know what to do with her unconcerned demeanour. Yes, It was true that she didn’t have a physical body, so it wasn't strictly necessary for her to prepare for any action the way they did. But the recent incident with his still yet unnamed sword technique proved she was still vulnerable in this form.

  When a short, round, bold man came around the corner, Kai understood, Syls reaction and he relaxed.

  The moment the man saw his group, he paused, stopping where he was at the bend and waved enthusiastically at them.

  Kai hit the man with an examination, doing his best to apply some finesse and polish to improve his use of the system action.

  Fatcher Turdle Lv.9

  Gnomel Age: 72

  (Self-Proclaimed) Village Mayor of Fatcher (formerly the township of Greckle).

  Hmm, that weird, “Anyone else examine him?”

  “Yeah…” Syl said, “his title is a little… odd.”

  It had all the usual details Kai had seen so far, but the use of parentheses seemed as Syl had put it, odd.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that seemed off to him, “At first I thought he was a short fat man, but being a Gnomel, I assume he’s just fat.”

  Alicia snorted at his comment.

  “How is someone so fat level nine? Is it some racial thing I don't know about?” Kai asked, continuing his line of thought out loud.

  “No, for his level he should be a bit fitter.” Syl said as she tapped her lips in contemplation.

  “I've seen plenty of fat, high-level men…” Alicia said as she came back to his side, “It's a good indicator they have vices. Could be that they reached their level and lost their way, or that they have self-indulgent vices and isn’t working hard enough to overcome the negative effects.”

  “It also happens to people who are carried to their level, the essence in their cores full of impurities inflating their level. He might have also completely neglected his physical core in favour of training his magical one. Either way his stats are probably terrible for his level, probably in the high end of the one hundreds. Nothing compared to my two hundred and ninety total, and I’m only level five.”

  “Damn it!” Alicia muttered.

  “What?”

  “Your stat total is higher than mine, two hundred and ninety? I am at,” she looked off to the side, feeling out her stat total. “I am two levels higher, but I am only at two fifty-five with my stats! It's not fair.” She pouted.

  “Don’t forget I started out perfect and refined my essence at each level. Kai has a flat three hundred. But I try not to get down about it; he has a physical body to exercise his physical core, giving him more opportunities to gain stats outside of the essence he uses when levelling.”

  “Still not fair; I wish Master had actually worked with me to find my core before I came into the dungeon.”

  Kai chuckled, “You think it's unfair? I think you and Gift combined easily outperform the two of us; he’s like some kind of personal force multiplier no one can take away from you.”

  Gift chimed happily in agreement.

  It was strange, but Kai thought he might be starting to understand Gift, just like everyone understanding the random beeps and boops of a certain little robot and hairy man, in a certain popular space opera.

  “Alicia, you will catch up; all you need to do is work harder than us to gain stats outside of levelling up. Even then, if you keep up, assuming we all tier up at the same time,” Syl glanced to the side, “at level one hundred there should only be about a five percent difference. “But If you tier up just five levels ahead of him, you’ll actually be neck and neck, but that’s not including other stat gains. So it’s isn’t as bad as you think it is.”

  Syl's words seemed to light a fire in Alicia's golden eyes. Grinning, she said, “Kai has no idea what real training is. Its going to be easy to gain stats and tier up before him.”

  “I’m not that lazy. Am I?”

  “Put it this way, Alicia spends a minimum of two hours each night training at the archery range. What do you do each nigh besides trying to have sweet dreams?”

  Ignoring Syl’s little dig, he looked over at Alicia to see she practically glowed with confidence. He might be in trouble.

  Syl sighed, “looks like the fat man's given up on beckoning us over; he’s heading over… Do we wait and let him work it off, or do we go meet him? He’s not exactly pushing himself that fast…”

  “Hey, being fat is not easy; for all we know, it's not vices, being carried or an imbalanced core. It could be a curse or something.”

  “Kai, don’t reflect past onto him. Things work differently when you have a functional mana core. You age slower, live longer and your body also produces mana when your body digests the food you eat. It takes a lot more then a sedentary life style to end up like that.”

  “Really, what else is different with a functioning mana core?” Kai asked as the man slowly waddled their way.

  Syl gave him a Do you really want to know? look, and he nodded.

  “Low mana is the leading cause of cramps, bloating and any of the other maladies women back on earth had to endure, and normally everything that usually comes out is actually magically reabsorbed. And don’t worry, mana is used to produce more eggs, so no menopause. Alicia will still be able to have children when she is a thousand or even five thousand years old.”

  Kai just blinked, his jaw slack.

  Son to a single mother and two older sisters who practically raised him, the topic didn’t phase him; it was just a lot to absorb out of the blue.

  “Don’t look at me like that” Syl said unable to hide her amusement. “You’re the one who asked.”

  Alicia, for her part, also showed signs of confusion her brow scrunched as she looked off to the side.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “So you’re saying, no periods, no bleeding… No mood swings?” Kai asked to make sure his understanding was correct.

  “If only, women still get moody and emotional, just not because their insides are tearing themselves apart, just pure hormones.”

  “Fine,” Alicia asked, “I’ll ask. What is menopause?”

  “Oh, I guess it isn’t something this world really deals with, the short answer is It’s the permanent end of a woman’s menstrual cycle. It happens when a woman cannot produce more eggs then the ones they were born with because they lack the mana to do so. Back on Kai's home world, it usually occurred between ages forty-five and fifty-five; when it happened, no more eggs, so no more babies. It was considered a natural part of ageing. On Alea, it's probably no more than a very rare disease affecting women with damaged cores.” Syl explained.

  “Babies… Before forty-five?!” alicai squeak in surprise. “If I can help it, I’m not planning on having any children until I am at a minimum of over one century old.”

  “Tier up first; your children will get a bit better with each tear… better cores, better stats.” Syl said as she looked over to Kai, “Though I’m not sure how Kai’s race and traits will affect things.”

  Kai was actually pleased they had this conversation; from the sounds of it, he wouldn’t be under any pressure to settle down and start a family anytime soon. Even when he got Syl a real body, they had plenty of time.

  He had always wanted children, and even as a guy, getting to the age of thirty-seven and having no sign of any relationship in sight, he had all but given up on ever starting a family of his own. But now, now he had time to get used to this new world, the system and the changes magic brought to him and everyone else back on earth.

  Thinking at earth he had to chuckle. The pink tax was really going to suffer now that feminine hygiene products should be a thing of the past…

  Then it hit him; these changes would affect Earth, which, just so far as he knew, only had humans. “Wait, from the way you're both talking, this isn’t an El’viairen thing, is it?”

  “What have I said about preconceived notions? I already told you almost all the humanoid races come from the same stock. Besides a few racial traits things typically effect el’vei, dwarves, humans and the rest the same way.”

  “It’s been a while; I forgot… He’s almost here.”

  The sound of weezing approached them faster than he thought a short, fat man could travel.

  “What are you standing around chatting for? The request issued to the guild was for you to come to the village immediately.” He heaved, pulling a grey-stained cloth from his pocket to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I happen to see you on my morning constitutional, wave you down, and you ignore me. The nerve. The guild will hear of this.”

  Kai looked at Syl, then Alicia, not having any clue what the man meant by the guild the two of them were both better equipped to deal with the man. He would be running on far too many assumptions with his limited knowledge. That and something about the man already had him on edge and he didn’t want to say something that would effect the team negatively.

  Understanding his silence, Syl drifted to the front, and addressed the man, “Mr. Turd-“

  “It’s Mayor Turdle or Master Turdle, thank you! Honestly, adventurers these days. Please, can you three stop wasting my time? I may be on my daily constitutional, but I have a lot to do today. Now come with me; the sooner I deal with the goblin infestation, the sooner we can open the mines and make some actual money…” Turdle turned and started waddling back down the path without them. “My economy is in shambles; no one told me how expensive being a mayor is; everyone wants a piece of me.”

  The three of them shared a look.

  ‘I really don’t like this guy; what do we do?’ Kai communicated silently, mind to mind, using the party chat.

  ‘Agreed, but I think we should play along until we know what's happening.’ Syl replied in kind.

  ‘He stinks, like sweat and stale alcohol.’ Alicia said, wrinkling her nose.

  Waiting to see how things played out, they followed behind the disgruntled man in silence.

  They had surmised from the man's dialogue that he had issued an request to the local adventurers guild to have the goblins that were infesting the local mines cleared out.

  ‘A mine of all things, you had to jinx it, didn’t you?’ Syl groaned, ‘Err, another forest, err, why can’t this dungeon with an active dungeon master spice things up, err, me dumb dumb,’ she continued, poorly mimicking him.

  Alicia nodded along, ‘We are not really equipped for a cave. I may use support magic, but with Gift my primary path has changed to being a hybrid ranger; caves are one of the worst environments for me. That and we don’t have torches, head protection, poison gas detectors, glow stones… I know Syl can give us some light, but there is more to caves then people think; they’re one of the biggest killers of lazy adventurers.’

  Kai had to admit, adventuring was a lot more involved than he thought. But all of the dungeon tests so far seemed to be carefully adjusted to them and their capabilities. ‘I am sure it won't be that bad.’ He sent, as he silently hoped this test wasn’t about dealing with things they weren't prepared for.

  ‘Do you even know why Goblin wretches like caves? No, okay, let me tell you. They’re smaller than most races, so it’s easier for them to crawl into cracks and crevices others can’t. The little shits like to ambush you from the shadows. One moment you'll be slipping through a gap to get to the next area, and the next the six goblins you missed will be on your back line, dragging them off down some side path you’ll never find to do gods know what. I’ve seen it far too many times to count.’

  ‘Damn, this isn’t going to be a fun one is it; what are the odds we get lucky and it’s some kind of man-made mine and not some cave this guy wants to turn into a mine. he wasn’t clear on the subjest, if im not mistaken he said open, not re-open?’

  ‘The shit,’ Syl groaned, ignoring his question she went on, ‘what do you think they do with all their shit? Can't remember, can you? My fault, so I will tell you. They don’t store it; they don’t take it outside to safely dispose of it. What they like to do is use it, and I don't mean to grow mushrooms. Okay, so they do grow mushrooms. But that’s not all, it goes everywhere. Trap, covered in shit. A slippery slope leading to a chasm, covered in shit. A rock face you need to scale, covered in shit!’

  ‘At least they are being resourceful.’ Kai said trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘Next time you’re in a multistage dungeon and you don’t know what to expect, keep your mouth shut!’

  ‘You’re forgetting you’re an astral projection. You’ll be able to pass through gaps and scout things out. That, and you have a keen mana sense, so they shouldn’t be able to get behind us unless we are really careless. Perhaps Kain knew we were facing the maze, and then this test and taught you what you needed to get us through this.” Kai suggested.

  Syl drifted to a stop. ‘Damn it, you might be right... You should know you’re not allowed to be right when I’m mad at you.’

  ‘Noted.’

  The slow, ponderous man eventually got them to the bend in the road; coming around some trees, they saw that the village had actually just been out of sight. Had they immediately decided to head in the opposite direction, they would have easily missed it. Fatcher Turdle clearly didn’t have it in him to chase them down.

  ‘If the turd's idea of a constitutional is to walk out to this bend each morning, it’s no surprise he’s so robust at his level.’

  Kai mentally chuckled, ‘Turd, I like that.’ He wasn’t normally one to resort to things like name-calling, but the man hadn’t made a very good impression.

  “Great, the workers are finally up and at it; those shacks won’t tear themselves down.” The turd said, “Come, come, the day may be long, but time is always short. The mines are through the village and out of the west gate… yes, not too far from there, but far too close to have any goblins.”

  “Why are you tearing down shacks?” Alicia asked as they watched a group of gnomes work together, pulling on a series of ropes together to literally tear down a building.

  The turd lifted his head and blinked. “Ah- yes, they were, hmm. Yes, they were damaged by the goblins a couple of nights ago. Raiding our stores, you see. Goblins will steal anything they can get their grubby mitts on. They damaged the structure of a lot of the older buildings; it's much safer to tear them all down and use the materials to improve things to a higher standard. Yes, yes, much better.”

  Again Kai got the feeling something wasn’t quite right here, ‘Is it me or did that question make him sweat?’

  ‘Some people are just like this, but yes, he does seem… off.’ Alicia said as she did her best to put Kai between her and the strange gnome man.

  ‘His eyes do seem to wander; I think we’re not supposed to trust this guy, but I’m concerned that that is a little too obvious and the dungeons trying trick us into making assumbtions. I could be overthinking things.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that too… Follow my lead. But keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks suspicious.’

  “Mayor Turdle,” Syl said, putting a subtle emphasis on the turd in Turdle. ‘This infestation, it’s in the villages mine. Am I right in assuming we will find a path the miners use to haul the ore back for sale, a path that should lead us straight there?”

  “Yes-“ The third used his cloth to dab at his brow. “Yes, I believe you will.”

  Kai was watching him carefully. He seemed uncertain; somehow distracted by other things, he had completely missed the inside joke related to his name. For a moment, Kai was worried Syl had blown it. But no, the man had been thinking a little too hard about the path getting them to the mine.

  “Good, then we won't waste any more of your time.” Syl said as she immediately turned and drifted off at a rapid pace. ‘Keep up, you two.’

  Kai noted the sudden panic that flashed in the man's eyes before doing exactly as Syl asked; following right behind Alicia, he intentionally blocked the man's view of them leaving.

  “Wait! I need to… your guide! The guild will hear of this!” The turd shouted after them.

  ‘Ignore him; no way I’m letting him plant someone in our midst.’

  Kai had no complaints; he followed with his head on a swivel as they passed through the village, before he knew it they were passing out of the west gate.

  Despite what the mayor had said they saw no clear path. Looking about they found a narrow trail leading off into the forest and followed it, occasionally stopping so Syl could check if they weren't being tailed.

  After the fourth time Syl checked, she spoke up, “Alicia, did you notice what I did?”

  “If you are talking about the perfectly intact goblin huts everywhere in that village, then yes.”

  Kai had noticed some differences between what was being taken down and what had been recently built but hadn’t thought too much about it.

  Syl tapped her lips. “I don't think the mayor was being entirely truthful.”

  Alicia scoffed, “that is an understatement.”

  “Problem is we don’t know if that’s just his personality or if something else is going on. My money is on something else.” Kai added

  “Come on, let's find this mine. We need to investigate this so-called goblin infestation.” Syl said as she continued down the trail unmolested by the bushes that attacked both him and Alicia from either side.

  As it turns out, the only viable path from the west gate did not, in fact, lead straight to the mine; instead, it just kind of continued off into the forest for a while before it just wasn’t a trail anymore. Something they all agreed was suspicious.

  Kai had seen the mans uncertainty when he agreed with Syl’s assertion that they should find a path the village's miners used. It struck him as odd that the mayor of a small village didn’t know the way to the village's mine, especially when he heavily implied his economy relied on it.

  Apparently that was the point of Syl’s assertion. It had been bait; the moment the mayor had said ‘I believe,’ Syl had decided to get the three of them out of there so they could figure things out on their own without any interference.

  With the goblin huts and the suspicious mayor and his still curious title, they hoped checking out the mine for themselves would give them the final pieces of the puzzle.

  After twenty minutes of wandering through the trees, Kai was beginning to wonder if they had done the right thing running off the way they had without the guide the mayor had clearly prepared for them.

  Luckily he was saved from asking if they were lost when they heard the sound of laughter carrying through the trees.

  Cautiously they followed the sound and soon the three of them were hiding in a thicket, watching a group of oddly shaped, tiny-torsoed, big headed and floppy-eared pink skinned goblin children play in a clearing outside a cave, that was nestled away in a hillock.

  Alicia and Syl did not look happy.

  ‘Syl, what is it?’ Kai asked through the party chat.

  ‘Just examine one, any one of them… it doesn’t matter which,’

  Picking out the one that seemed to be leading the others in a game of tag, Kai did just that.

  Oola Tidbittle Lv.2

  Goblin Age: 6 ( uncommon )

  Dispossessed orphan of the former township of Greckle.

  ‘Oh Shit…’

  The extra puzzle piece they had been looking for came crashing down, his heart sinking. Kai realised what was happening, what the mayor had sent them to do, and why the goblin huts were being pulled down.