Growth Hero

by Brent Tyman

  7

  A few hours of grinding passed quickly as I applied my technique to dispatch each group of Rats I encountered. There were times where I wasn’t able to flank them without getting into their aggro range, but they only followed my movements for a short while if I backed off quickly.

  That inevitably led to the perfect single file line of Rats I desired to employ my tactic against. I achieved this relatively safe grinding method with ease. As I had feared, though, my backpack was far too small to carry so many pelts. It was filled up to the brim after only fifteen pelts, so I decided simply not to collect any more after that.

  I could certainly carry a few extra in my hands on the way back to the city, but knowing a few fantasy and manga tropes, I didn’t want to get accosted by bandits or other adventurers for my openly displayed wares.

  There was no doubt I would be a target, since I was completely alone compared to other adventurer groups, so it would be foolhardy to make myself even more of an obvious target.

  I did, however, convert the Rat corpses into pelts and neatly tucked them away in any hidden pockets in the caverns. It would be unlikely I’d find my way back to each and every spot I had passed through, but it was better than nothing.

  Fifteen pelts felt like a decent haul and I felt positive about my stat grinding when I finally exited the Dungeon and followed the path back to the city. There were a few adventurers moving the same direction on the path back to the city, but most were still heading out to the Dungeon.

  “Time to see my stats,” I said to myself and willed my stats to appear.

  Stats

  Strength: 7

  Speed: 1

  Defense: 1

  Magical Power: 1

  Magical Capacity: 1

  Luck: 1

  I had hoped to receive a modest increase to my Defense, to at least two, but was mostly glad not to be stuck at where I’d been before.

  These results were incredible! I had gotten six full increases to my Strength stat. My hard work had certainly paid off.

  I recalled the recruiters back at the Adventurer’s Guild; one of them had wanted at least a five in Speed, so it seemed I’d meet their criteria for any that wanted Strength.

  Not that I would go through that application process for joining another Clan ever again. I had proved to myself I could solo this Dungeon and achieve the growth I sought. I didn’t need a Clan’s help.

  I spent the rest of the journey back to the Guild Hall in high spirits and hoped that these pelts would fetch a decent price. By my estimate, it had been late morning when I had been dropped off in the city, and now the sun stood just above the horizon.

  Those few hours of grinding turned out to pretty much take up most of the day.

  Since the Dungeon didn’t seem to close at all, I should have expected adventurers would tackle it at night as well, but the fairly large amount of them who walked the other way as I headed back to the city surprised me.

  It wasn’t quite twilight yet; daylight was still good for a bit. Maybe some planned to grind for an hour or so?

  There was a line this time to get back in through the arch to the city, which took ten minutes or so to get through. When I had passed the gatehouse heading out towards the Dungeon, there hadn’t been any guards checking those who wished to leave.

  On my way back in, they simply asked for my name and checked the copper badge that Selina had given me after registering with the Adventurers’ Guild.

  I followed the signs and soon found myself back in front of the guild, which was still bustling and busy as ever. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day it was; adventurers were always present here.

  As luck would have it, I saw Selina standing outside the guild, about to head in. When our eyes met, she waved and came over to me, instead.

  “Greetings again, Alex,” she said, smiling. “Did you manage to join a Clan yet or will you do that another day?”

  The fact that she even mentioned those crappy Clans threatened to sour my good mood. Still, I managed to keep most of my anger in check, if only because of how polite Selina was.

  “I did spend the first part of the day going to each and every one of the Clan houses on your list, but every single one of them rejected me,” I replied.

  “Oh no,” her face reflected her dismay. “I’m truly sorry. I can look again at my list to find other Clans that may take you on. The result might be that they won’t be as well established, however.”

  I put a hand up to wave that away.

  “No, thank you. Pretty sure I don’t want to join a Clan for the foreseeable future after all that bother. I went to the Dungeon by myself and managed just fine.”

  I patted my bag and opened it up to show her all the Rat pelts I had wedged in there.

  “That’s incredible!” she exclaimed as her eyes widened at the pelts. “For a man of your stats to bring back so many pelts in one day… It’s beyond astonishing.”

  I closed up my bag and tried not to bask in the praise too much. I was only getting started, after all.

  “Can you tell me where I can sell this stuff in the guild?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “I am just back from my last break of the day, so I will be happy to arrange the sale for you. Please, follow me.”

  Selina led me back to her desk and once she was firmly settled, had me place all the pelts on her desk.

  I watched as she examined each in detail and wrote notes as she compiled how much coin I would get for them. The only thing I was looking for was enough to afford a place to stay and get a good meal—at least for tonight, but hopefully for longer than that.

  This city had plenty of inns to choose from, and my stomach growled in protest at the lack of food.

  Just a little while longer, I promised my growling stomach.

  “Sixteen pelts at four copper a piece brings the total to sixty-four coppers. Please give me a moment to fetch the sum,” Selina said once she was done.

  “Okay. No problem.”

  That seemed like a lot, but I would see how much it might get me, once I found an inn to sleep in. When Selina handed me the coins in a small pouch, which I hoped was included in the exchange, she had a curious look to her face.

  “I must reiterate again, Alex,” she said, “your success in the Dungeon is truly incredible. I’ve never once seen a solo adventurer bring back so many pelts on their own.”

  I laughed at that.

  “Haha, yeah thanks. I would have brought more, but this bag of mine can only carry so much. I must have killed fifty Rats in that place. I should probably get a bigger bag soon.”

  Selina, for some reason, lost all color in her face. I watched in fascination as the blood rushed away from her cheeks and she gave me a serious look.

  “I’m sorry? Fifty Rats? That cannot be. It typically takes a party of four copper ranked adventurers to achieve similar results in a full day—and you were only in there for just over half a day.”

  “Is that so? Well, I’ll try to bring back more pelts once I get a bigger bag to prove it to you.”

  The woman went silent for a moment as she mulled over my words, and I wanted to kick myself for revealing too much. Were my results really that abnormal here?

  “What of your stats, did you have any luck improving them today?” she asked.

  At this point, a big part of me wanted to just lie and say I’d managed to raise my strength by one, or that I didn’t get any increases at all. This was solely to dampen any suspicions she might have about me, but I wasn’t sure if defeating fifty Rats would result in the increase I had received, or was usually much less.

  The truth had worked with Doyle and his party, and while I wanted to be careful about placing my trust in strangers, Selina had been nothing but helpful and didn’t seem to wish me any ill.

  “My strength is at seven, after today’s grind… I mean training.”

  Her eyes went even wider than before and her mouth curved into an ‘o’ shape. It was almost like
I had blown her away with my statement. I was half sure she was about to faceplant into the ground manga style but luckily, she managed to keep enough of her composure for now.

  “From one to seven? Truly?” she breathed.

  “That’s right? Pretty happy with the progress so far.”

  “I… would say… It normally takes an adventurer months to achieve such an increase in one stat. You have accomplished this in less than a day.”

  Was she praising me again? The last thing I wanted was to get a big head going into the Dungeon. My ankle still twinged with pain from that damn Rat’s bite in my first engagement.

  “Uhh… thanks, Selina… As for the ‘takes months’ thing… does it really take that long to increase one’s stats by six points?”

  She nodded and pointed behind me. I looked back to see a bunch of adventurers decked out in leather armor.

  “That group started two months ago, and their top damage dealer has an eight in Strength. He began with a five, as I recall.”

  It took him two months to get three increases in his Strength stat? That seemed painfully slow.

  “And I got to seven in one day… Wow.”

  Selina laughed at that, and when I looked back, the color had returned to her face.

  “Wow is an understatement, indeed. Miraculous would be a better word for this type of increase. I would encourage you not to spread word of this growth to too many ears, else you may attract attention that you wouldn’t like.”

  I certainly didn’t plan to tell too many others at all, now that I had context for how other adventurers leveled their stats.

  Not that I had anyone else really to tell at this point.

  “I was thinking the same thing. Thank you for sharing this information with me, Selina. I appreciate it.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to help any budding adventurer the best way I know how,” she smiled.

  My business was done with the guild for today, so I bid Selina farewell and headed out to find an inn to eat and sleep in. The choices I had seemed to be endless. Every signpost had the typical inn names I expected to see, such as the Wet Boar, the Flaming Hen, and the Roaring Goat.

  With the coin from the sale of those Rat pelts added to the wealth I’d obtained from the bandit, I had a grand total of seventy-one copper to my name.

  Selina had explained how currency worked briefly during our first meeting. One hundred copper equaled one silver, a hundred silver equaled a gold coin, and so on. It was fairly basic, and I appreciated that I could at least know how much coin I had in relation to everything else.

  Whether I had enough to afford a night in an inn was the question now, but Selina had seemed impressed with my haul, so I was confident it would do. With the variety of inns on display and no proper way to know the difference between them, at least from the outside, they looked all the same to me; I decided to just go with the one that had the most appealing name.

  Eventually, I settled on the Windy Wolf. It had a nice ring to it, and I was tired of walking. I stepped off the street, opened the wooden doors and stepped inside.

  The place had a cozy atmosphere to it. Candles dotted the walls on small shelves while an oversized chandelier hung down in the middle of the room.

  Behind the bar was a fairly plump man, who slowly rubbed a cloth over a mug. Patrons of all kinds occupied about half of the tables in the place, and they gave me a cursory glance before dismissing me as uninteresting.

  This whole place had a very light novel feel to it, which shouldn’t have surprised me. Most of the patron were talking quite animatedly while a woman in maid clothing rushed around the place serving drinks. Her bust swished in tune to her steps which naturally made her far more interesting to watch than me.

  I could understand that.

  “What can I getcha?” the innkeeper called out, still cleaning that mug as I approached.

  “How much for a room for the night?” I asked.

  “Cost ya thirty-two copper and no less,” his face twisted into a scowl. “Been lots of folk trying to bargain me down, and I ain’t having it no more. Thirty-two copper.”

  Jeez, that was way more than I had expected. Had I accidentally walked into the most expensive inn in the entire city? While this place truly was cozy, I didn’t think such homy comfort would translate to such a high price for a night’s stay.

  The innkeeper was still giving me that scowl, but I didn’t want to hunt for another inn at this point.

  “Deal,” I said as I opened up my coin bag and handed over thirty-two copper. The expense left a bad taste in my mouth; I would definitely complain if the bed he had was trash.

  The innkeeper scooped up the coins I dropped in his hand while I lamented that my coin bag felt a little more than half as heavy as it had. This left me with just thirty-nine copper. I could only afford one more night in this place and that was it.

  “Does the price at least include some dinner or something?”

  “Of course,” the innkeeper scoffed again. He seemed to enjoy scoffing and scowling. “I take care of my patrons. What do ya want?”

  “Just something filling,” I replied, not knowing what sort of foods this fantasy world offered.

  The Innkeeper led me to my room, and I let out a tired sigh as he closed the door behind me.

  It was a small room with a dresser, bed, a single window and a table, but it was more than enough for my needs. I quickly jumped onto the bed and marveled as its softness. I stretched out my limbs and kicked off my shoes.

  My first trip to the Dungeon had been a success, and now I had some glorious time to reflect.

  The high price of this inn still puzzled me, but the more I thought about it, I realized it made a small lick of sense.

  Thirty-two copper was the value of eight rat pelts. I had taken down close to fifty of them, which would have equaled a bit more than two hundred copper or two silver.

  That seemed reasonable, given how easy it was to farm the rats—now that I knew what I was doing. I could only imagine that other monsters would yield higher rewards, so the baseline for spending a day in the dungeon and getting a roof over your head the following night was manageable.

  My first priority tomorrow would be buying a bigger bag for holding all those pelts I’d stashed in the Dungeon and farming rats to make more coin. Every adventurer I’d seen had leather armor of some kind. My biggest weakness was still Defense, so armor was a good investment to keep me alive.

  And for avoiding painful bites on my poor ankles…

  A knock on the door broke me away from my thoughts, and the innkeeper opened the door with some food.

  “Here’s the special for today, enjoy it ya hear.”

  He set a plate on the table and left without another word. I got up from the bed and had a look. It looked to be some kind of meat with green peas. I wasn’t quite sure what animal it was from, but after a quick bite, it tasted like beef most of all.

  Maybe a little like chicken, too.

  At this point, I was so hungry that my body had no qualms about whatever food I put into my mouth. I soon found myself scarfing it all down as if I was in some kind of eating contest.

  “Damn, this is good food,” I mumbled to myself. “At least some things in this world are familiar.”

  While it was still a bit early, I decided it would be best if I got a good night’s rest and headed to the Dungeon in the early morning. After I got a bigger bag to carry all those pelts, of course.

  I sat back onto the bed and laid down. The only light here was a few candles scattered about that the innkeeper likely replaced every so often. Half of them were nearly spent as it was, so I was content to leave them be.

  It wasn’t like there was much light to begin with anyway. Despite my excitement at being dropped into this fantasy world, with magic, dungeons and monsters, I felt a little melancholy.

  Every night, I had flicked through pictures of my late parents and I really wished the Goddess had let me bring a photo of them with
me. I felt even more lonely, when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to look at their image anymore.

  “They would want me to be strong,” I told myself before blowing out a sigh. “Strong and happy…”

  I missed them, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Maybe those douche bags rejecting me from their Clans had affected me more than I’d thought. A coldness seeped out from my heart and not having anyone to talk to made it worse.

  I’d have to carve out my own little slice of happiness from this place and see what became of me. As ever, the one thing I was sure of was that I would make do with what I had.

  As I’d done so often in the past.

  My eyes began to get heavy, and I found myself drifting off. I would survive and maybe…

  Just maybe…

  I wouldn’t have to make this journey alone.

  8

  The next few days were productive and flew by. I’d managed to buy a robust backpack that would carry upwards of sixty-odd pelts. Granted, it was quite heavy when filled to capacity, but the more I grinded in the Dungeon, the lighter it felt on my back.

  My routine was mundane, if effective. I got up in the early morning, ate whatever the innkeeper had cooked up on that particular day, and then headed to the Dungeon.

  The only actual breaks I needed were when I had defeated enough Rats to fill my pack, and then it became a quick trek back to the guild to sell my spoils.

  I always went to Selina each time unless it was her day off that one time, in which case, I ended up selling to another receptionist that didn’t offer her name.

  Selina seemed to get more and more surprised every time I brought more pelts for her, always marveling that I had gathered more in a few hours than what a four party group brings in a day.

  Even now, I found that puzzling. The Rats at this point had become nothing more than one and done threats that only required some positioning beforehand. This led me to believe that everyone else in the Dungeon simply attacked the rats head on, which allowed them to attack you more erratically.