Might as Well

They talked long into the night.

With the older man offering more and more rewards and Sam trying to politely refuse them. He had no need for the hand of the old man’s niece. In the end, he was saved by the son coming to his rescue, joining the discussion in clean clothes and with a relieved smile on his face.

Sam’s requests were rather easy. He wanted help to get his company started and maybe a few plots to rent or outright buy.

The Morrison patriarch and his son were rather excited at the idea, as the last business idea they participated in resulted in the ship being sunk and Gregory spending quality time at the mercy of a pirate band. So, the possibility of a business that had nothing to do with the sea came as a stark relief.

The discussion quickly devolved into specifics which made Sam a little uncomfortable. While he had a general understanding of business, he rather preferred that Lucy dealt with the details. So, he simply wrote everything that was said down, ready to hand over to his friend.

Naturally, the two Morrisons praised him for making minutes of the meeting.

Sam left the Morrison estate the next morning laden with paperwork, documents, and scrolls. Happy and immensely tired. He spent a little time packaging everything together, then sent it off to Lucy before leaving the game and falling face-first into his bed, mentally exhausted but exhilarated.

**

The next time he entered the game, he made sure that his equipment was in a good enough condition, then took a short detour toward the city library.

The guard this time didn’t even check his card. Sam simply received a respectful nod and the gate to the library was opened for him.

Opposite the door, at the desk, was the librarian, who helped him the last time, sitting there, reading something.

Upon his entry, the elderly woman looked up and even from a distance, Sam could spot the happiness in her eyes. With purposeful steps, he approached the desk and bowed his head a little.

“I have returned, as promised.”

The woman put away her reading and gave Sam a gentle smile.

“I have heard.” She looked around a little, then gently waved her hand. Sam felt an equally gentle pulse leave her but hover around them in a globe. ‘Ahh, an area of silence…’

He said nothing, waiting patiently for the woman to speak up.

She took a big breath, then spoke up.

“I heard what happened. Thank you for saving my nephew…”

Sam blinked in surprise, then smiled.

“No problem. After all, it was thanks to your help I managed it!”

“Don’t be so modest, young man,” she replied with a knowing smile. Sam opened his mouth to refute it, continuing to act humble, but the older woman cut him off. “However, I’m not here to exalt you, young man. A favor for a favor is what I wanted to talk to you about!”

“A favor?”

“Yes, you helped my family, thus I aim to repay that help.”

“Err, your family already repaid my help, ma’am. There is no need for that…”

The older woman just waved his hand away.

“Bah! That’s that, and this is different! Plus, after you hear what I’m offering, you will look at my help differently.” She spoke softly but managed to inject a little warning, causing Sam to swallow in trepidation.

The older woman smirked at him, reached over to her desk and retrieved an envelope that had no identifying mark on it, then held it out to Sam.

“The deal is this, young man. I’ve here a letter to a person who can help with your studies in the realm of runes. Should you accept it, they’ll be able to help you master the art.” She held up a hand in warning. “However, they’re not the most agreeable sort. All I can offer is an introduction, nothing more.”

Sam stared at the unassuming letter and swallowed again. He went with runes as the crafting skill as he needed it for Lucky’s evolutions and the game had a lot of rituals that he could make use of. Plus, after he mastered the basics of runes, several branches of the art would grant the wielder of the art an overpowered skill or two in the future, not to mention the riches.

Runic Masters was one of the best-paid jobs in his inherited memories. Mana activation rituals, and familiar evolution rituals, were just the basics of basics. Body refining, weapon and armor refining, area protection, and so on. There were rituals for everything. Of course, people mastering the runes could also pick up enchanting. While you could enchant without runes, the two together were more than the sum of the parts. In the future that would not be, a weapon without runic enchantments had no worth.

Sam reached out and gently took the letter and placed it in his inventory.

“Thank you, ma’am, for the trust…”

“Don’t thank me just yet, young man. You’ll have to work hard if you want to master the runic arts…”

“Understood!” he replied with another bow of his head. “Anything else that I can help with?” he then asked with a small smirk on his face.

The elderly woman just chuckled and waved him away. “No thank you! Now go, and enjoy your adventure, and maybe when you feel like it, drop by and entertain this old lady with tales of your actions…”

**

Sam left Deepanchor cheerfully, the letter somewhat heavy in his inventory. Thankfully, the person it was addressed to was also residing in the capital. So, he simply refreshed his consumables, made sure that his Bottomless Flask was full of Health Potion, and his inventory had enough Mana and other potions, and left the city.

He only came to alleviate Lucy’s problem with the city, and now that it was finished, he could finally get back on the road toward his original destination.

Outside the gates, he spent half an hour on foot, rushing away from the city, just in case somebody followed him that he couldn’t sense. Those he could he already lost in the labyrinthian back alleys of the harbor city with the help of his shadow magic and Chameleon Mask.

Standing in a small clearing, Sam stretched his senses as far away as possible and when he sensed nothing but the faraway bustle of the main road leading from Deepanchor, the occasional monster that roamed the well-maintained forest surrounding the city, he let out a sigh and called out.

“Lucky!”

The wolf instantly resurfaced and took up a guard position, recognizing that they were out in the wilderness. However, when no attack came, his furry friend relaxed and turned toward Sam, and let out a happy little bark.

Sam didn’t even have to kneel down, he simply stepped forward to embrace the wolf.

It was simply amazing how lifelike the game was. Simply hugging his companion was enough to make him relax. The wolf, naturally, like a dog, let him do it, and only the wagging of his tail told about how much he enjoyed it.

After a few minutes of Sam enjoying Lucky’s companionship, he stepped backward and looked into Lucky’s eyes. “My friend, we’re going on a long journey! Are you ready?”

Lucky nodded his head and let out an encouraging bark.

WOOF

Then he stepped forward and lowered his body so that Sam could climb upon it comfortably.

“You’re too good to me…” he said, then began the process of climbing up.

The journey would be long, and he wanted to be as comfortable as possible.

**

They sped past trees and monsters alike, ignoring everything that wanted to attack them. Lucky originally wouldn’t have the mana capacity to last this long, but with Sam’s control, it was child’s play to channel mana into the shadow wolf, allowing him to travel farther.

The usual miscreants that the system conjured tried to slow them down, but the player bandits were simply ignored, while the monsters were mowed down with judicious use of Wind Blades from Sam while Lucky focused on speed and maintaining the direction.

Thankfully, his mana regeneration was pretty good, so he was able to maintain a steady supply of it for his companion.

They were in a straight section, rushing through empty fields of green, occasionally dotted by trees and shrubbery with a few monsters and animals here and there. Fortunately, not many of them felt the need to try their luck with a ferocious-looking giant shadow wolf.

Sam was pretty much zoned out, just going through the motions.

Channel mana into Lucky. Fire off Wind Blades. Regenerate mana.

And so on, in an endless cycle.

However, he still kept up the Mana Sense, so he was shocked out of his reverie by a fast-approaching Mana signal. As he focused on it, he reached out to get a ‘taste’ – for the lack of a better word – of the approaching person’s mana.

It was tinged with shadows and poison, but he could detect other flavors of mana too. Yet, this was all overwhelmed by the sheer raggedness of the mana. As if it barely clung to the person.

‘They are running from something…’ he thought as Lucky continued to run. ‘And he is heading right at me… joy.’

Soon after, he could see with his own eyes as a man in a ragged cloak rushed toward him, while several other people in the same type of cloak appeared in the distance. Sadly, Sam recognized the cloaks, as they were rather distinct. ‘Silent Step! What are they doing? Infighting?’

He reached out with his Mana Sense and other skills and took a look at the chasing people, hoping to get some idea about the situation. Instantly, he was slapped by the cloying stench of the very familiar mana of the Calon worshippers and the being that tainted the ancient forest. Sadly, it was a distinctly different flavor, so he couldn’t really say which demon they made a deal with, but as far as Sam was concerned, making a deal with any demon was bad juju.

It took him a few seconds to take in the situation, then he looked surprised and horrified at the same time.

‘The Silent Step never went for demon summoning. They were always big on pure skill! What happe– Right, I beat them like an old drum…’

The man was approaching rather fast, and it was pretty obvious he was heading right toward Sam. To attack him or take shelter with him was not clear, but Sam didn’t want to chance it.

“Lucky, start slowing down! When the man appears, ambush from behind!”

The smart wolf let out a bark of understanding and Sam could feel the wolf gradually slow down.

Possibly seeing this, the fleeing assassin sped up and soon Sam could see the exhaustion evident on his face.

Lucky stopped under him and he hopped off while the wolf vanished into his shadows. He raised a hand and began gathering wind mana, shaping the wind into a small compressed ball. As the assassin kept running and the half dozen pursuers followed, he just kept feeding mana into it.

And when the raggedly breathing man was close enough for him to hear Sam, he called out just loud enough that the people presumably wanting to kill the man (there was still a chance that this was some kind of elaborate assassination plot) didn’t hear him.

“Duck!”

The man threw himself into the dirt without hesitation and Sam let go of the magic in his palm. Instantly, a giant paper-thin wave of wind blade exploded from it, sweeping over the man on the ground and instantly slicing the first man into two. Sadly, the rest of the pursuers were far enough to be able to react and dodge out of the way.

Instead, only the poor trees and ambitious bushes fell victim to Sam’s spell.

But even that was enough to grant the fleeing man a breather. Enough that he managed to spit out a few words.

“Demon… Summon… Fled… Kill…on… Order…” he panted, trying to get up on his knees, but it was obvious that the last skill he had used left him with a hefty debuff.

Sam eyed the man and the rapidly approaching assassins. “You owe me one…”

The man on the ground managed a weak nod, but Sam’s attention was on the attackers. However, before they could do anything, the last one, who was lagging behind for some reason let out a cry of pain as Lucky resurfaced from his shadow and used his deadly claws and magic to tear him a new one.

The other assassins glanced back in surprise and Sam used the momentary distraction to unsheathe his sword, clad it in wind mana, increasing its cutting power and activating his speed-increasing skills, followed by launching himself at the assassins.

With the taint on them, there was no need to hold back. After all, who knows what kind of ‘blessing’ the demon gave them?

The assassins, proving that they had a little training, said nothing upon the death of their comrade, they simply raised their daggers and rushed at Sam, while behind their back Lucky followed them, tongue lolling out in excitement, his claws still dark with the first cultist’s blood.