Chapter 37

Luke took another sip of his drink and looked Minou over. The man was probably around level 10, which surprised Luke because he looked like he was in his forties. He was dressed in rough home-spun, like something the actors in old-timey movies set three hundred years ago might wear.

He was in good shape, but it just looked like the physique of a man who did hard labor for a living, not a man whose body had been fortified with AP invested heavily into stats. Even at level 10, Luke had been in better shape. Compared to his physical capabilities now, he’d been a joke back then, but this guy wasn’t even that. He must have invested nearly all his AP into skills.

“Do you have a room for rent?” Luke asked.

Minou nodded eagerly. “Got an extra room for the last three years, since my oldest girl got married, and I’m happy to let you use it as long as you need it.”

“One night would be fine. I’m not planning on staying long. Maybe six hours.”

“Er, just one night?” The man’s face fell. “Ah. That should be fine, yes. That would be fine. You are welcome to stay with my family for the night, Guardian.”

Luke struggled not to roll his eyes. “What’s it going to cost me?” he asked, dreading hearing the answer. Somehow he doubted it was going to be just money. Luke didn’t play a lot of these kinds of video games, but he knew the set up for a side quest when he saw one.

“Well, see, there’s this tiny little problem on the farm,” Minou said. “More of a speed bump for someone like you.”

“No thanks,” Luke said.

“But… what? I haven’t even told you what the problem is yet.”

“You need something killed, some big wolf or coyote or fox that’s raiding your chickens and pigs.”

“I… er, yes.” The man’s face flushed.

“Nope. I want a solid night’s sleep, not to hang around for a week playing sheepdog waiting for it to show up. I have other places to be.”

Minou seemed to struggle with himself for a few moments. His mouth flopped open and closed repeatedly. Luke just kept sipping his drink. “This is really good,” he told the bartender. “Are you sure I can’t pay you for it?”

“No, Guardian.”

“Why do you keep calling me that? I’m not guarding anything.”

The bartender shook his head. “We can all feel your strength. You are young to have that much. You’ve fought for something important, spent your precious years defending something. That is worthy of respect. I don’t know what they call your kind in whatever land you come from, but here, that makes you a Guardian.”

Luke took another drink to cover his confusion. He’d had a fairly intense month, sure, but he had trouble believing anyone would take more than a year or two of half-assed effort to catch up to his current level. Probably it could be done in less than six months of weekend hunting.

Then again, maybe the monsters were just less dense outside the valley. There were a lot more people here who’d need to split the XP too, but still, the math didn’t add up. There were plenty of people who were ten or twenty years older than him in the bar, and they’d had the other nineteen years that he’d spent on Earth to grind out levels on top of that.

He was missing something that the bartender thought was obvious, some piece of knowledge that everybody knew. If everybody knew, he couldn’t afford to ask, not if he wanted to keep his disguise intact. The cloak could only do so much to hide him, and asking stupid questions was a surefire way to get extra attention pointed his way.

They’d already identified him as a foreigner, no doubt from the language skill. Even he could tell that the way his mouth was moving wasn’t pronouncing the words correctly compared to what he could hear under the translation coming into his brain. Then there was the fact that everyone around him was a lot darker than he was, enough so that he didn’t think it was just the result of spending a lot of time out in the sun. After all, he’d been living outside for the past month and his skin was still lighter than the rest of the room.

Probably the third tell was the fact that this whole village only had maybe thirty or forty houses in it. He doubted there was a person in town over the age of five who didn’t know everyone else’s name, and probably half their business too. He might have been able to pass as an out-of-towner if it were just that, but everything together was just too much.

At least, that was everything his [Disguise] skill was feeding into his brain rapid-fire. It was a bit disorienting, but Luke had the perfect cover: continuing to drink! He tipped the cup back, then sighed when it came back empty.

“Another?” the bartender asked.

“Only if you let me pay this time.”

He wasn’t even a little bit buzzed, which in hindsight was to be expected. Stamina was healing life-altering injuries in hours; mere alcohol didn’t have a chance. In fact, he was pretty sure some of the things stamina had healed were things that plain couldn’t be fixed back home, like, poop in a bag for the rest of his life kind of injuries, and he didn’t even have a scar to show for it.

Luke placed one of the stolen coins on the counter. “How much is this worth?” he asked. He felt safe asking with his disguise as a foreigner well established. If anyone gave him a funny look, he’d just tell them they didn’t have currency like that back home. It would even be the truth.

“For this much? Just about the whole cask,” the bartender said, his eyebrows up to his hairline. “I’m not sure I can make change.”

“Keep it,” Luke said. “Just consider whatever I don’t use a tip for your generosity earlier.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir Guardian.”

He slid another mug in front of Luke and swept the empty one away. Luke drank in silence while he listened to the other bar-goers chatter behind him. It seemed that the initial excitement of his entrance had died down once he’d failed to do anything exciting, which was just fine by him. No one was mistaking him for a native, but that hadn’t ever been on the table. His disguise was holding, at least enough that a bunch of drunks hadn’t started screeching and calling down the wrath of Heaven on his head.

It probably wasn’t the best test, he admitted, but everyone had to start somewhere.

“How about this,” Minou said suddenly. “You can stay as long as you want, no charge. If the problem shows up while you’re there, you take care of it. If not, you just be on your way in the morning, or the next day, or whenever you’re ready.”

Luke looked down at his drink for a second. He’d feel kind of bad about staying for free if their problem monster didn’t make an appearance. “You realize it’s less likely to come around if I’m there, right?”

“Because of your aura, yes,” Minou said. “If that keeps it away for a night, that’s still a win for me. If it’s stupid to show up anyway, even better.”

“Fuck me,” Luke muttered. Then, louder, he added, “What is this thing anyway?”

“A chimera from the mountains. We haven’t gotten a good look at it, but it’s big as a wagon. I think it’s lionblooded. Not as strong as you, though.”

“I’m sure. Fine then, I’m going to finish this drink, maybe have one more. We’ll go back to your farm, and if it shows up, I’ll take care of it. If not, I’m on my way in the morning. Deal?”

“Deal!”

The second cup didn’t last nearly as long as the first. Luke still wasn’t buzzed by the time he drained it. Damn stamina for being so helpful anyway.

* * *

Minou introduced his family to Luke when they arrived, but he promptly forgot their names. He made pleasantries for a few minutes, then asked to be shown to the room he’d be using. It was a tiny thing, barely big enough for the narrow bed that occupied it. Still, it was a bed, and if it smelled a bit musty, Luke didn’t have a lot of room to judge.

He shucked the armor off, tossed the cloak over it to hide it, and leaned his mace up against the wall next to his bed. Then he extinguished the sole candle on the end table, not that he needed the light, and closed his eyes. It felt like only seconds had gone by when he heard the door creak open.

“Sir Guardian,” a voice hissed through the darkness. “The monster is back. We spotted it from the kitchen window.

Luke groaned and sat up. Of course it was. There was no such thing as a free meal. He was going to go out there, bash it really, really hard with a heavy piece of metal, and then go right back to sleep. Grumbling to himself, Luke picked up his mace and stalked out of the farmhouse.

It was easy to see the monster in the dark. Minou hadn’t been lying about how big it was either. If anything, he’d undersold it. The damn thing was the size of a utility van, not counting its tail. It was thick through the middle with muscle, and walked on four legs. It had a lion’s head, complete with mane, except its eyes were slits like a snake. Just past its shoulders, fur gave way to scales, and its back legs looked like they belonged to a massive alligator instead of a great cat.

He didn’t spot a stinger at the end of the tail, but he wasn’t going to dismiss it as harmless. Images of it looping around his neck and crushing his throat danced through his mind. The chimera’s head shot up from its gruesome feast, some hapless farm animal that had been a bit slower than the rest of its flock, and a gore-stained muzzle turned towards Luke.

He could feel its XP, stronger than he’d expected. It was close to Luke’s, probably within a level of him. He kicked himself for not taking the time to put the damn armor on before he came out to fight, but it took so long to adjust all the straps and he’d been expecting an easy victory.

“Let that be a lesson about not being an idiot. You took precautions for a reason. Follow through with them, dumbass.”

Still, he wasn’t that worried. Animals were never as challenging as sapient enemies of the same level. The template, or whatever it was System had called it, sucked away too much of their AP into utility skills. He could handle it as long as he was careful.

Wanting to end things quickly, Luke readied a [Power Strike] and burst into a sprint. The chimera’s lion head roared in challenge, and it bounded forward too. Luke leaped straight into the air, mace held overhead in a two-handed grip, and brought it down on the chimera’s face with all the power he could muster.

It left an impressive crater in the farmyard where he landed, but didn’t even touch the chimera. It pulled up short and spun away as soon as Luke had leaped, had in fact baited him into the attack and then dodged it cleanly. It was smarter than he’d given it credit for.

While he was recovering from the missed attack, it charged in from the side, jaws snapping and claws flashing. Luke let [Twitch Reflexes] pull him out of the way and reset his stance. He had definitely underestimated the chimera.

“God damn it. I just wanted a night of uninterrupted sleep. Why was that too much to ask for?”