The orb appeared, and I jammed my hand into it, accepting the prompt without bothering to read it.
I ignored the fang that appeared as loot when the puma vanished and brought up my experience bar.
0/1 experience to next level.
No…it couldn’t be. There had to be experience. I’d worked it out. This was the way. The monster was strong enough. What had I done wrong?
Salem walked over and stared up at me as I muttered to myself. There was no snide look in on his face, only a quiet sorrow. “I want you to know that I understand your pain, Arnold. I understand the madness that is driving you to this insanity. You are grieving for the family and friends you will never see again. I understand why you feel you must do this. I hoped my help would make you see reason, but I am afraid I have only made you run farther from your grief. I am going back to the village now. I hope you live long enough to see reason. The puma’s cub is coming. You should flee.”
With a small nod, Salem turned and dashed off in the direction of the village. I’d barely heard what he said. I was too busy madly staring at the lack of experience. It should have worked.
Why didn’t it?
A growl came from the bushes.
I looked up, gripping my spear tight as I searched for Salem. It took me a second to remember he was gone. Then the young puma was on me.
I woke to pain and clean white sheets. The bedside table held a mug of water. I was in my room at the inn. I hesitated before looking under the covers, but when I finally checked, there were so many bandages I had no real idea of how injured I was.
I remembered fighting the young puma and barely surviving. It had torn my legs up pretty good while I stabbed it to death. The walk back was a blur of pain and blood, but I didn't remember making it to the village. I remembered collapsing just past the edge of the forest but going no farther.
I took the cup of water and drank, and then exhaustion took me to the land of sleep, where my pain couldn’t follow.
The next time I woke, a spindly old man was changing the bandages on my legs, humming a mournful melody.
Healer Yaceb.
Yaceb had lost all his hair and had liver spots all over his arms and scalp. He wore a simple white shirt and trousers with no shoes.
He worked slowly and methodically, taking care with each movement.
As the song came to its end, he started to talk without looking at me. “I have seen men hanging from trees, others drowning in a bottle, and even men trying to choke themselves on blood, believing war, of all things, will solve their problems. I find it sad that there are so many ways for a man to kill himself.”
He gave a firm tug, pulling a bandage tight, causing a spasm of pain to shoot through my leg.
“Then there are the men who make others participate…I have been told to tell you that The Beaten Anvil will no longer supply you with weapons. And Gretel will ask you to vacate your room if you ever return to her inn bleeding. I, however, do not have that luxury. If you come to my door, I will heal you. I will not turn you away. But neither will I hold my tongue. So let old Yaceb ask you, son, what’s got you so twisted up that you’re trying to kill yourself?”
Chapter Four
TWO SEASONS AND CHANGE
My legs looked like they’d passed through a paper shredder. Despite alcohol baths and what Yaceb promised were antibacterial poultices, infection set in, and I spent several nights with fevered dreams. The physical pain matched my emotional state and it was four days before I could bring myself to answer Yaceb’s questions.
I spent fifteen days in bed healing in more than just the physical sense. And even then, it was still another two weeks before I could walk without the aid of a cane or crutch.
Reality hit me hard.
I’d been so excited by the fact that this world behaved like a game that I hadn’t let myself think about what I’d lost until life got too real. By then, I couldn’t take back my decision to stay, so like a madman, I’d done everything I could to justify that it was the right choice, even twisting my own thoughts.
Fine or coherent were not words I’d use to describe my actions in the forest or the days before. Grief-stricken madness was more accurate. I grieved for my parents and my sister Sophie and the fact that we’d never have another Christmas. I grieved for the friends I’d never see again and the fact that I already missed them. They were all still alive but out of reach.
By the time I could walk, I wasn’t the wreck that had fallen unconscious at the edge of the forest. Each day the pain from being unable to get back to them was just as harsh. The only thing that changed was me. I got a little stronger, a little better at carrying that pain around with me. A month of bedrest helped me get my head straight.
I had to face up to the fact that Salem had told me the truth. Farmers couldn’t level outside of their farm without buying experience. So I didn’t go back to the forest. Instead, I began to learn more about my new world.
I slowed my jog to a walk and held up my hand to stall Salem as I tried to catch my breath. Losing weight sucked. “Wait, let me just make sure I understand what you are saying. The purpose of all classes and the system behind it is to generate magic…leveling, skills, and everything else are all there to facilitate this process.”
Well done, you have successfully comprehended simplified system theory lore well enough to parrot it back, earning you your first rank of comprehension in this field. You can now boast that you understand system theory lore as well as any Novice.
The thoughts sloshing around in my skull solidified.
I dismissed the prompt.
“Yes,” Salem said.
We were close enough to the forest that he wasn’t worried about someone overhearing or seeing him reply.
“Then why are there so many limitations? Why can’t I go into the forest over there and kill a few monsters to level?”
“Can you not guess the answer from what I’ve already told you?”
I frowned, wiping sweat from my forehead. Salem was doing this more and more. It was both extraordinarily annoying and helpful.
Several minutes passed while I tried to cobble together an answer. “I’m just thinking out loud here, but if the whole system is designed to generate magic, then the system wouldn’t reward anything that didn’t add to this functionality. That means that it needs farmers farming for some reason; rewarding anything outside those actions would be counterproductive.” Something suddenly occurred to me. “Salem, how much of the surface area of villages, towns, and city zones is taken up by farming?”
“Between 80% and 90%.”
That was a lot of space. And if everything was there to generate magic, that had to mean the space filled a purpose. “Salem, are farms used to refine magic in some way?”
Well done, you have successfully deduced something you have not been directly told, showing you have gained greater comprehension of system theory lore, earning you a new rank of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand system theory lore as well as any Initiate.
Salem chuckled. “Two levels of comprehension in only a matter of minutes—impressive. And to answer your question, yes. Farms seem to be at the foundation of the human system. It is the mechanism by which all other magic is brought into it.”
“You just said the human system? Are there different systems for different races?”
“Yes. The foundational mechanism for the dwarven race is mining and crafting. The elven system is based on forestry and hunting. The orc system is built on battle.”
“How can a system be based on battle? Wait. Don’t answer that, I’ll only get sidetracked. I need to tackle this question first: so the human system for generating magic seems to require a lot of farmers and farms for it to work. That means the system is only going to reward actions which encourage that sort of growth which is why I can’t walk into the forest and kill a monster to gain experience.”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t ma
ke sense, though.”
Salem sighed. “What doesn’t make sense?”
“If the foundation of the system is farming, shouldn’t the system be more rewarding? Everything you’ve told me about farmers says that it’s one of the more difficult classes to level. It takes more than a decade to get to level five without assistance.”
“Ah, you have made a false assumption from living here in Blackwood. That is my fault. This was originally built as an independent village. The farmers’ forefathers were hermits who rejected society. They individually own their farms which makes them ineffective. Traditionally, farms are large operations where hundreds to thousands of farmworkers work under a landlord. Farmers as a class are not meant to grow independently but as a collective. How to explain…ah…think of farms like an assembly line rather than individual constructions. You told me you have them in your world so it should help you understand. Working as a group speeds up their growth.”
“Even if that is true, it would still make more sense to make the class easier to level…unless, how high does your average farmer grow in their lifetime?”
“High forties,” Salem said.
“And from what you’ve told me, a farmer is at their most cost-effective at around level thirty which means they spend the majority of their professional life locked at that level bracket. This means the system is designed to stop a farmer from leveling further. It doesn’t need a whole lot of farmers around level ninety; it needs a whole lot of them around level thirty.”
“Yes.”
“So the reason I feel like it’s rigged against me is because it is rigged against me.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck!” I began jogging, thinking dark thoughts for several minutes, hoping to burn off the anger with exercise. Salem didn’t interrupt me. He just kept pace beside me.
The class system was literally rigged against me. It didn’t want me to succeed. It needed me not to. That was just the most aggravating curveball life had thrown my way. It meant that finding a way to exploit the system was going to be even more challenging.
I was probably going to have to use my backup plan.
From my discussions with Salem, I didn’t have much I could bring to this world that wasn’t already brought by someone else. They even knew about electronics, but Salem told me they couldn’t use it because magnets and electricity interfered with magic in weird ways. I wanted to test that out when I knew a bit more about the world, but I was learning to trust Salem more and more. He was an ass, but he didn’t lie.
Finally, I said the words I didn’t want to say. “Salem, can you please teach me to read and write?”
Salem looked at me for several seconds. “Why the sudden interest?”
“Well, I’m beginning to believe your assessment of the situation. And I’m really not interested in farming, and I will need to make money eventually. I figure there are a few books from my world that will do just as well in yours as they did in mine and if I can learn to read and write your language maybe I can translate them. It should be enough to make a living. People are always interested in listening to us incarnates on account of our title making us more interesting.”
Salem chuckled. “As far as plans go it is not terrible or original. There are many incarnate who have done the same. Perhaps with my guidance, you will be one of the ones who are successful enough to purchase experience.”
“I hope so.”
The next six months passed in a blur of study, friendly gambling, and a whole lot of board and card games. Between drinking and games, I got to know a fair amount of the villagers who weren’t farmers, including the mayor, Jeric, who I played chess with a couple of nights a week. Because of all that, things grew a little less painful.
Friends, people…they keep the horror that is loneliness at bay.
I even had a couple of dates. They didn’t go on to anything, as my dates inevitably realised I didn’t plan to farm. They didn’t like my plan for making a living either. People were devoted to their class. They didn’t understand the idea of working outside of it—in fact, the only people who did were servants or members of the army’s militia.
I probably would have kept going with my plan to translate Pride and Prejudice, except Salem had me start reading as part of the learning process. I read dozens of books on different subjects before a book called The Farmer’s Guide to Farming landed in front of me.
It was just like any other read until an exciting passage caught my attention.
On the off chance your farm is raided by goblins and you survive, it is always wise to check your root cellar after the goblins have fled. Extremely greedy and gluttonous goblins sometimes eat themselves into a comatose state and are incredibly vulnerable in this condition. Killing them while incapacitated will usually gain you enough valuable experience that it can offset the cost of rebuilding, if not pay for it outright.
If I had have read that passage when I’d first arrived, I would have immediately run to Salem demanding answers. Now, I was a little wiser and cautious. So, I spent the next week reading and rereading the entire book to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood through a translation error and began framing questions I could ask and seeing if I could answer them myself without going through the know-it-all.
It was a bright and sunny afternoon when Salem leapt onto my windowsill in my room. The fact that we were on the second floor of the inn didn’t faze him.
“I need you to read something and answer a few questions,” I said, opening the book to the page I had marked before placing it down on the bed beside me.
Salem rolled his eyes and effortlessly leapt onto the mattress. He stopped in front of the book and focused on the area I pointed to, scanning the text four times faster than I possibly could, before looking at me with a bored expression. “You cannot earn experience from killing monsters.”
I nodded, expecting the reply. “So the book is mistaken then.”
“No. The text is correct.”
“So you can get experience from killing monsters?”
“What did I just say?”
“I know what you just said, but you’re contradicting yourself.”
The arrogant asshole smiled smugly. “Not in the slightest.”
“Then if killing a monster doesn’t give farmers experience, how does the farmer killing the goblin in the text give experience?”
“The experience isn’t from slaying the monster. It is from defending their farm.”
I didn’t speak for almost a minute and my voice was shaky when I did. “Just to clarify, you are saying a farmer receives experience from killing monsters when they are defending their farm?”
“Obviously.”
I took a few deep breaths, almost giddy with excitement. My week spent reading and rereading hadn’t been wasted. My translation was correct.
I moved onto my next question. “How does that work exactly? And what is the specific difference between defending your farm and killing a monster in the forest?”
I’d learned that many things that seemed straightforward were not. Gambling was one of those. I gambled drinking money with a few of the village guards most nights, but there were specific rules you had to follow. Games either had to be timed or had to have a clear ending. You had to play to win, and you couldn’t give the winnings back. If you followed those rules, you received gambler experience when you won.
The thing was, those rules weren’t written in stone. They could be bent. The guards and I only played for a copper piece, which didn’t give much experience, but a win was just enough for the winner to buy everyone at the table a round of ales. And it didn’t negate the rules for gaining gambler experience. So, in essence, it was free experience, since the guards and I were going to buy those ales anyway.
Salem kneaded the covers with his paws before taking a seat. “I will answer your second question first. The difference between defending your farm and killing a monster in the forest is the threat posed. The threat I am talking about
is not to your person, but to your farm. As a farmer, your farm is your vehicle for leveling. When a monster threatens this vehicle, it becomes a danger to your farm, similar to a disease or pest, only a far more dangerous one. Since removing a disease or pest offers experience, killing a monster or wild animal offers a similar reward. Since the risk is that much greater, the reward is too.”
I’d figured it was something like that but had to ask to make sure which was why I had my next question ready. “Will I gain experience if I capture a small monster and then bring it to my farm and kill it?”
“No, and you are far from the first to think of this. In that scenario, the initial combat would have begun in the forest, and the rules for a farmer killing a monster in the forest would apply despite the monster having been killed on your farm, so no experience. And, yes, the same parameters would be triggered if you let a monster chase you through the forest to your farm. Not that you are likely to make that work, as weak monsters rarely leave the forest, and you would not be able to outrun a troll.”
Well, that answer was annoying but not unexpected.
“So, it’s all a matter of when the combat is initiated, right? The goblins in the book initiated combat after they came onto the farm which allowed the farmer to gain experience from killing them.”
“Exactly. Now, if you have no more stupid questions…” Salem stood up to leave.
“What rules apply if a farmer leaves a trail of food from the forest to their farm?”
“Stupidity…there is no guarantee the monster you lured would come to your farm and you would be endangering your neighbours.”
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 6