Growth Hero

by Brent Tyman

  In an instant, the ink swallowed up the Goddess, enveloping her entire form. I watched her fall onto her side from her seated position before there was nothing but a puddle of blackness before me.

  The puddle immediately stretched towards the table, and my heart started pounding in my chest. I was half sure it would break free from my chest at any moment and this being would consume me before I could flee. I still couldn’t move my damn legs! For the billionth time, what the heck was happening!

  The table succumbed to the black puddle, and to my relief, the puddle evaporated from my sight a moment later. It had taken both the Goddess and the cards with it. For a moment, there was only silence. The surrounding land was still gloomy and dark, so I could only assume the voice was still up there.

  From nowhere, one of the Goddess’ cards appeared above me, slowly falling in the air. I gently reached up and grasped it between my index finger and thumb, since there was little else I could do.

  I knew this was the exact same card that I had picked. Though I still couldn’t read them, it had the same odd symbols on it.

  A moment later, the chair I had been sitting on, which seemed to be made of a cloud, suddenly disappeared and the clouds below me opened up. I could feel myself falling.

  My vision went dark a moment later.

  The last thought I had, was that I somehow hoped the Goddess was alright, and that there really was a new world waiting for me…

  Somewhere, out there…

  2

  Light greeted me the instant I tried to open my eyes. Powerful green colors overloaded my senses, and I rubbed my face. After a few moments, I remembered my crazy dream about a certain Goddess and her getting swallowed up by some sort of sentient black liquid.

  “What the heck?” I practically shouted as I scrambled to my feet, looking around me.

  I was now in some sort of forest, surrounded by thick trees and bushes. The air felt fresher than anything I had breathed before. But, to be fair, it wasn’t like I did much hiking back home.

  If I’d have woken up in my cramped little bed, I would probably have dismissed those strange events as just a weird dream. But this place… there was something strange about it.

  I looked up into a sky that, hands down, told me that I wasn’t anywhere near home at all.

  There were three moons in the sky. One of them even looked like it was a solid green, against a teal sky.

  “Incredible…” I muttered to myself. “Now I just gotta figure out what to do next.”

  As if in response to my query, a small blue screen appeared in the corner of my right eye. When I focused on it, it swiftly expanded to fill my entire vision. I shook my head in surprise and noted that the blue screen followed wherever I looked.

  It was exactly like the interface some of my favorite RPGs had in game. Now, it seemed I was seeing one in real life.

  Previous web link - Error, this world does not support connection.

  Establishing web link to current world - Connection Successful.

  Accessing Rantanu Records

  No records found

  Generating new profile . . . Display Profile.

  Name: Alex Augere

  Race: Human

  Stats:

  Strength: 1

  Speed: 1

  Defense: 1

  Magical Power: 1

  Magical Capacity: 1

  Luck: 1

  If the multiple moons hadn’t been a good indicator that I was in another world entirely, then this confirmed it hands down.

  After skimming through the text, I was excited to find myself in a fantasy world, as there seemed to be magic here. But those stats… even if every stat went down to zero, this was truly pitiful.

  Jeez… How could I be this terrible at everything? There was no indication of a class system I could spec into or mention of any available points I could use to make these stats anything other than one.

  Was that Goddess getting even with me for picking that skill she’d been forced to grant me? Was she the one who’d picked these stats?

  Speaking of which, what happened to that skill that had caused so much drama?

  I skimmed through my character profile once again, but there was no mention of skills or special powers. Maybe I needed to specify that I wanted to check out my skills? Some RPG’s had different windows for abilities and skills. They even stored other information like inventory and such on separate pages.

  I could figure this out, it just needed a little prodding.

  “Uhh… Skills?” I said—though it was more of a question than a statement. To my surprise, another window opened up in front of my stats.

  Skills

  Growth: Increased growth for a selected stat

  Currently boosting: None

  I read over the text about four times, and then a fifth time for good measure. Was that it? Some monstrous black liquid had swallowed up a Goddess because she didn’t want to give me… ‘Growth’?

  I could feel a headache coming on as I tried to comprehend what was going on. The text didn’t even have any flashy effects or descriptive category, like Legendary or Epic, tied to this skill.

  It seemed to just increase the growth of one of my stats and that was it.

  After a few moments of thinking it over, I decided I shouldn’t discount it just yet. Technically, a boost skill was better than nothing, and I was thankful to have anything at all. My late parents had taught me to appreciate whatever I had.

  Right! I suppose all I needed to do now, was decide what stat I should boost first and be on my way.

  Both of the magical stats I dismissed immediately since I didn’t have any magic to speak of. I tried to see if my character profile would give me any specifics about each stat, but there didn’t seem to be a tutorial or even tooltips explaining them. Although Luck seemed interesting, if it only increased drop rates or something, it really wouldn’t help me at all right now.

  I tended to favor front line melee or ‘DPS’ roles in the RPGs I played—I was more of a Strength over Speed guy. My choices in this case seemed to be Strength or Defense. If I assumed there would be foes, like in typical RPG’s, I could either opt to do more damage or take less damage.

  And while being more sturdy was definitely appealing, I didn’t want to have to run away from a fight simply because I couldn’t dish out any damage.

  That would probably take me nowhere fast.

  Increased damage output meant I could take my foes down quicker, which would also increase my survivability… as long as I could avoid getting hit.

  A decent trade off if I took everything into account.

  Resolved to start with boosting my strength, I opened up the skills window again and mentally tried to tell it to boost my Strength. A drop-down window appeared with all my stats and I selected ‘Strength’. I swear I could feel a bit of resistance against the tip of my finger when it touched the translucent blue screen. Once I’d confirmed my choice, the screen went away.

  When I checked my Skills screen again, it noted that my currently boosted stat was Strength. Well, that was that.

  I looked around at the unassuming forest and it hadn’t changed at all from the first time I had examined it. The leaves ruffled in the light breeze and the branches bobbed up and down in tune to each other.

  I figured I should check what items I had to start out with next. Looking down at my clothes, it was only now that I realized I was still wearing the exact same clothes that I’d gone to bed in—a blue t-shirt with matching pajama bottoms.

  My mouth thinned into a hard, straight line and I shook my head. This outfit was definitively not fit for traveling in a forest. For some reason, I at least had on some sneakers with black, athletic socks. Those were what I usually wore to work each day, so I supposed that was better than being barefoot.

  Checking my pockets, I found a grand total of… absolutely nothing on me.

  Maybe starting out in this fantasy world wasn’t going to be as easy as I tho
ught. Usually, RPGs had your character start out with some king of a weapon, at least, like a short sword or an underpowered spell. I would at least expect some kind of gear to be given to me at this point.

  I half considered searching for a pointy stick at this point. Just in case, I took another good look around to see if I was missing anything. It definitely seemed I owned nothing more than the clothes on my back.

  Letting out a breath after a few minutes of finding nothing useful around, I scratched the back of my head in thought.

  Well, I guess it was time to get going then.

  There was no obvious path or trail nearby that shouted, ‘Go this way!’ so I simply picked a direction that seemed to have fewer trees to weave around. The ground felt pretty soft under my feet, but after a few moments of walking, I could tell that my sneakers weren’t going to work out too well.

  Despite the three moons hanging low in the sky, the sun was out and high overhead, making the time just past noonish. It had definitely rained earlier. Amongst the grass and bushes were long patches of mud that I was sure would swallow up my flimsy sneakers and not give them back.

  In all the RPG’s I’d played, nothing like this had ever happened to me. Having no direction of where to go or a handy map marker showing me the way felt off putting. I ended up walking carefully through the forest, my eyes fixated on the ground right in front of me, to ensure I didn’t trip over anything and fall into a patch of mud.

  The trees gradually thinned until a well-trod path appeared in front of me, which let me know that I was at least going in the right direction to exit this forest. It was caked in wet mud and I really didn’t like the prospect of traveling on it, but it highlighted that there must be some kind of civilization around here.

  That Goddess had said that this world was more suited to me; I could only hope that was true.

  Although, to be fair, she’d also said I couldn’t have this seemingly underwhelming skill. I didn’t want to think about how that had turned out for her.

  Since the sneakers weren’t really up to the job of trekking through the mud, I skirted along the edge of the path, being more comfortable walking on the grass than on the path itself. I had no idea where it led, but a path like this—maybe it was even considered to be a road—had to lead somewhere.

  I hoped I was walking in the right direction on it.

  Time seemed to pass quickly—the sun had traveled most of the way down from its zenith since I had started my journey. Impatient players would have called this a ‘walking simulator’ hours ago. While I usually didn’t mind those types of RPG’s too much, it was a whole different story when you actually had to do the walking.

  After only a few hours, my legs started to feel sore. Maybe that was due to my absolutely terrible Strength stat, but who knows? I’d had to walk a lot back home, since I didn’t have a car, so finding myself out-of-breath and tiring after only a few miles was strange, even for me.

  Another hour passed before I spotted anything noteworthy along the trail.

  A shape was coming towards me at a pretty good pace. It took only a few more steps before I could see that it looked to be another man. Even from this distance though, I could tell that there was something odd about this person.

  As he came closer, I could see that he wasn’t human, but had some sort of animal-like face. He had a snout instead of a mouth, with sharp fangs jutting out. Multiple tattoos adorned his face, tracing around the patches of fur I could see on his head.

  His clothes, if you could call them that, were also strange. Instead of clothing, he wore rags that covered between his legs and the tops of his shoulders, but that was it. The rest of his body was lightly furred, but otherwise humanoid.

  His hands had claws, though that wasn’t obvious at first glance.

  From his rags, a putrid smell wafted up to my nostrils when the wind blew my way. I assumed the stench was from the rags, given how dirty they were, but you never know. This beast of a man gradually slowed to a painful walk by the time he got close to where I stood, and I could soon see why.

  He was wounded.

  Blood dripped freely from a wound in his back, and as my eyes wandered back along his path, I noted that he’d left a trail of it behind him. Amongst all the muck and mud, I likely wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but his blood seemed to be thicker and darker than my own.

  How was he even still moving? Jeez, he’d been running when I’d first spotted him.

  The man registered my presence once he came within a few feet of me and as I mulled over what to say, his eyes widened and then narrowed at me.

  “Human scum!” he snarled, his gaze hostile.

  I stepped back in surprise when he pulled out a sword and lunged at me.

  “Whoa!” I yelled, mostly on impulse, I dodged his hasty thrust.

  This wounded man or beast, or whatever he was, was crazy fast. Even with what appeared to be an arrow in his back, the cause of his wound, he came at me with incredible speed. If he’d have been healthy, I doubt I’d have survived.

  Lucky for me, the beast man was fast but also sloppy. His legs wobbled and he nearly lost his balance as he slashed at me with an overhead chop. As I moved out the way, he stumbled past me and smashed the sword into the ground with a solid thud.

  Adrenaline pumped through my system and reason abandoned me. All that was left was pure instinct. And though I expected I would have to retreat and put some distance between me and this creature, that’s not what I did. My body moved to attack, almost of its own volition. I found myself darting in close and, clenched a fist, delivering a punch straight to the beast man’s face.

  With a wicked snap of breaking bone, my fist knocked loose a tooth. While that was probably what made such a grisly sound, it also made him lose his balance. I watched, as surprised as him, as he dropped his sword and fell backwards onto his rear.

  The arrow in his back was pushed deeper inside him. The man screamed a frantic shout that subsided to hacking gurgles. I watched in stunned silence as he thrashed about on the ground before laying still, blood pooling around him on either side.

  Jeez…

  This fantasy world was brutal. My first contact with someone and he’d tried to kill me! I hadn’t wanted to fight him, but he’d left me little choice. Besides, it had been his previous injury that caused his downfall, not my seemingly effective punch.

  I expected some kind of guilt from this to surface but was surprised to find that I felt… fine? Or at least at peace with what had happened. I suppose that watching a Goddess getting swallowed alive by sentient black gunk was still the most unusual experience I’d had today.

  This would be a close second, though.

  I still had no idea what had possessed this guy to attack me. He kind of looked like a bandit from his rags… maybe he was just bloodthirsty or too enraged because of his injury.

  Now that I had a corpse on my hands, I supposed it was common RPG practice to loot it for all it might be worth.

  I wasn’t sure how to go about it, as no inventory tab appeared in my vision as I examined his body. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to touch him at all and somehow magic his possessions into my hands, but it seemed this world didn’t operate that way.

  No way was I taking the rags he wore. Although, now that I noticed, he also sported a small bandana-like rag that covered the top of his head. When I went to remove that, I noticed that he had fluffy ears, spaced evenly on either side of his head.

  Yep, definitely not human—not that there’d been any doubt about that, with his fangs and furry torso.

  The man had a small pouch of coins on his belt. The symbols I saw etched on the face of the coins were definitely not in any language I recognized. Since they seemed to all be made of copper, I doubted they were worth much. There was also a small brown pack with straps looped around his shoulder that had been covered by the rags there.

  When I opened the pack, I found a book inside that looked out of place for someone dressed in rags to
possess. The book had intricate patterns beautifully etched on each of its leather covers, as well as along its spine. There also seemed to be a buzzing sound coming from it, though I honestly wasn’t sure if I was just imagining the sound.

  Heck, the book even glowed a bit in my hands, all along the intricate swirls and patterns etched into its cover. Did this mean it was a magical book of some kind? My excitement got the better of me and I quickly opened the book.

  A flash of white light momentarily blinded me, lasing for several seconds. I was still admonishing myself for being so careless in this new world, when my vision finally cleared.

  “What was that about?” I complained to myself, and I guess to the beast man’s corpse as well.

  Immediately, a blue window filled with text appeared in front of me.

  Magic Spells:

  Dynamic Healing - Heal a target for a range of ailments at significant magical cost

  Whoa! I had gotten myself my first magic skill!

  I paused mid-leap in my victory pose when I realized that I still had no clue how to use the spell. No tutorial had popped up to give me any indication about how to use magic at all. Deflating, I scrubbed my hands through my hair.

  Also, what was with this system giving such bare bones information about these skills and spells? What exactly was this ‘range of ailments’ and what did ‘significant magical cost’ even mean?

  Was I supposed to figure it out myself?

  With my Magical Power stat at only one, I wondered if I would be able to use this new spell. My brain tossed out even more questions, but I decided I should get moving again, else I would be here all day trying to analysis all this.

  The book itself had lost the glow it had before, and its pages were filled with meaningless symbols I couldn’t decipher. I flicked through its pages, but there wasn’t a lick of anything legible in it that I could read. I stuffed the book back into the pack and looped its strap around my arm.