All five phones chimed at once.

  ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED; The Basics

  The sound echoed just a little too loudly in the hall.

  Kaelith paused. Just for a fraction of a second, but James noticed. His lavender eyes flicked from slate to slate, counting. Measuring.

  “That one,” Kaelith said lightly, as if commenting on the weather, “is on the house.”

  Another wave of information settled into their minds. Not overwhelming this time, structured and ordered, A clean framework.

  They understood the guild’s internal structure: branch autonomy balanced by shared law, neutral arbitration, standardized contracts. Compensation tiers, risk modifiers, penalties for misconduct. What constituted a guild-sanctioned, and more importantly what didn’t. The difference between failure and negligence. The rules weren’t merely written, they clicked, slotting into place like concepts they’d always known but never named.

  James exhaled slowly. “So… this is basically an international labor union with teeth.”

  Kaelith smiled faintly. “An inelegant description. But not inaccurate.”

  The words weren’t accusatory. They were observational. Which somehow made them worse.

  He straightened, professionalism sliding neatly back into place. “Rest assured. What you have received is foundational only. Enough to function, both within the guild and around Elyndra.”

  James nodded. “Appreciated.”

  Internally, though, he was already filing the moment away.

  If this was ‘on the house,’ he thought, what exactly does it cost when someone starts paying attention?

  Jessie bounced on her heels. “THIS IS SO COOL.”

  Another detail stood out.

  The clock.

  Their phones displayed two time options.

  Elyndra Local Time – 12:00 Noct

  Earth Standard Time — 12:02 AM

  Earth time hadn’t moved. Despite it clearly being around noon on this planet, the sun similar to their own rising into the sky as they entered the town and building.

  James stared at it, brain quietly refusing to engage with the math.

  “That’s a problem for later,” he muttered.

  Kaelith watched them all with an expression that was equal parts curiosity and restraint, like a man watching dice roll that he hadn’t thrown.

  “Well,” he said at last, hands folding behind his back, “welcome to Elyndra.”

  Once the initial shock wore off, Kaelith began asking questions.

  Careful ones.

  How they had arrived here. What method they had used. Whether the appearance of their transport was intentional.

  James answered as honestly as he could, which mostly involved a lot of shrugging and the phrase “we were camping.”

  That answer did very little to explain the forty-foot diesel RV currently parked at the edge of town.

  It had, Kaelith admitted, caused concern.

  According to the town guard, a massive metal beast roaring out of the woods at nearly forty miles per hour had looked less like a merchant caravan and more like the opening act of an invasion. Several ballista crews had nearly loosed before someone noticed the people inside were not exactly dressed to make war.

  “Honestly,” James said, “that feels fair.”

  The guild offered them registration, official, provisional adventurer status. It would give them legal standing, access to work, and a way to earn coin while they figured out how to exist in Elyndra without accidentally starting a war.

  They were even paid a small bounty for the goblins they had helped kill. It wasn’t much, but it was something. There was no fee for the starting gear they were issued, that was on the house for information, little that it was, given to the kaelith acting as investigator and branch leader.

  After that the family had some decisions to make, they had no money, plastic cards and paper money didn’t make this world go round. That kicked off the first real argument. This was another world, and they were technically all viewed as adults in the laws of this land. Adventurers could be paid fair wage for odd jobs around town and even just outside the fence.

  Christine wanted the kids safe, inside the town, doing literally anything that didn’t involve monsters. But this was not earth, no one was paying for line cooks, and warehouse management was handled by people with physical stats and nepotism. The kids, meanwhile, pointed out, loudly, that they were all old enough to already have part-time jobs back on Earth and were more than capable of pulling their weight.

  Jessie declared this “the beginning of her legend.” Luke called it “early-game grinding.” Nikki sat passively on the side, less interested in the argument and more in her new bow.

  James tried to mediate and failed.

  In the end, the compromise was simple: they would work together. As a group.

  The System, apparently approving of this decision, flagged Luna and Ruby as Bonded Companions, unlocked Bonded Entities – Evolution Unrestricted, registered directly to James, the second part about evolution worried him. Their intelligence stats had quietly increased, which went a long way toward explaining why they had actually followed commands during the goblin attack.

  “Wow,” James said, scrolling. “So you can listen.”

  Both dogs wagged their tails.

  With registration complete, Kaelith directed a prim and proper secretary looking woman named Mirelle to assist them find their first official quest, no fighting at Christine’s request. A large quest board covered in various papers that a group of people milled around, sometimes taking a paper down and talking to a guild attendant standing behind a long desk.

  GATHER: LOCAL MEDICINAL HERBS

  Luke stared at the paper. “This is a fetch quest.” pulling up a page on his phone that showed requirements and progress for the group.

  James shrugged. “At least we’re getting paid.”

  The guild hall staff directed them to reference shelves, diagrams, and sample displays. They spent a short while learning what to gather, what not to touch, and which plants would actively try to kill them if harvested incorrectly.

  James made notes. Christine asked good questions. Nikki was annoyed

  Jessie memorized everything with the intensity of someone convinced destiny was watching.

  And just like that, their adventure officially began, with a basket, a map, and the most generic quest imaginable.

  They set out on their first quest with the RV.

  Once James slotted his phone, Slate, he reminded himself, into the holder in the center console, the screen flickered and reoriented. A new interface slid into place.

  VEHICLE REGISTERED

  He blinked. “Uh… guys?”

  The RV had stats.

  Health. Durability. Storage capacity. Even a rudimentary skill tree. According to the readout, it ran on mana stones and crystals, which the System helpfully labeled as compatible fuel. The current fuel gauge registered as full despite having been half empty when they parked last night. There were upgrade modules listed as well, some requesting mundane materials like wood, dirt, water, and cloth, while others required metals: iron, copper, gold.

  A few slots simply read:

  REQUIREMENTS: ?????

  “Don’t like that.” James mumbled to himself.

  With no materials to spare and no idea what half the upgrades even did, they decided to table the discovery for later and focus on the quest. The herb fields were marked near an F-rank Goblin Zone, close enough to be fertile, far enough away that they should avoid trouble.

  Should being the operative word.

  At the city gate, they were stopped again.

  “Identification,” the guards said.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  They had tried using their Earth-issued IDs on the way into town. The guards turned the cards over, frowned, and handed them back upside down. “These mean nothing,” one of them had said. They only made it into town with the help of Arther’s word and assurance that the guild was involved.

  Now showing their phones with the slate page open, however, worked instantly. The guards stepped aside, but reminding them that Slates were the only recognized form of identification in Elyndra.

  As far as James could tell, the system was absolute, this lead to no forged papers, false names and even spies or criminals pretending to be someone else.

  That was… unsettling. The system, or rather the mana that made it all up, it was like some higher intelligence wanted full awareness of what was going on in this world. And yet that intelligence remained silent only observing.

  They rolled out of the city and followed the road for several miles until the map marked their destination. The phone interface allowed zooming, tagging, and automatic logging of visited locations, the guild, the city gates, even the campsite from this first awful morning. Everything else, places they had not been all showed blacked out, similar to the fog of war from some RTS games.

  James parked the RV and suggested they stick together. By the time he locked the door and turned around, everyone was gone. He sighed, then checked his phone. The family location sharing was still active.

  Small dots moved together on the map, clustered just beyond the tree line. Close enough. Together. Safe, probably.

  “Well,” he said to Luna and Ruby. “Guess it’s just us.” The dogs wagged their tails, entirely unconcerned as James set off into the heavily wooded area to see what he could find.

  James was halfway through comparing leaf shapes when a scream cut through the woods, it was sharp and panicked, but more importantly it was close enough that James could help.

  He froze, eyes flicking to his map. The sound didn’t line up with any of his family’s markers. All dots were still clustered together, moving steadily.

  “Alright,” he muttered. “Not my party.”

  Luna and Ruby were already alert, ears forward, low growls rumbling in their chests.

  “Let’s go.”

  They moved fast, branches snapping underfoot, the air thickening with a familiar stench the closer they got, wet earth, rot, and something coppery underneath. Goblins.

  They broke through the brush into a small clearing.

  A young woman stood at the center, backed against a fallen log, stumbling over her own feet as three goblins circled her. James was getting a better look at them in the bright light of the sun overhead. They were small but broad, skin a sickly green-gray stretched tight over knobby limbs. Their heads were too large for their bodies, mouths split wide with jagged teeth, breath reeking of filth and old blood. Crude blades and clubs were clenched in dirty hands, they made the same noises he heard this morning, it was wet and high-pitched screeches, grunts and growls.

  The smell hit James a second later, unwashed bodies, mold, and the unmistakable tang of blood and violence.

  “Luna, Ruby, flank them”

  They moved instantly.

  James raised his hand, heart hammering. First real fight. No pressure.

  Fire.

  The spell launched, and sailed wide, scorching a tree.

  Ice.

  Too low. Frost exploded harmlessly against the dirt.

  Earth.

  The projectile rose halfway out of the ground, then basically rolled across the ground like a rock.

  “…Wow,” he muttered. “Probably should have practiced.” he thought to himself. There must be some trick to this that he had not learned yet. He thought to himself, he brought the staff up and focused once more sending out a ball of wind.

  One goblin turned just in time to catch the wind bolt square in the chest. It wasn’t impressive, more shove than strike, but it knocked the creature off its feet.

  “Well,” James said, forcing a grin. “I hit something.”

  Luna and Ruby didn’t wait.

  They hit the goblins from opposite sides, fast and brutal. Fang and claw tore through thin armor, bodies dropping with wet sounds and shrill cries cut short. Blood sprayed dark and viscous, soaking their fur.

  James charged the last goblin as it tried to scramble away, bringing his staff down hard.

  Crack.

  The creature collapsed.

  “At least hitting things still works,” he said, breathing hard.

  His phone buzzed.

  James glanced at his wrist. “Oh. The watch is still synced. Nice.”

  XP GAINED

  SKILL PROFICIENCY INCREASED

  He exhaled and turned toward the girl. “Hey, are you okay? It’s safe now.”

  She stared past him, eyes locked on the dogs.

  They stood over the bodies, muzzles dripping, fur matted with dark blood.

  “…What are they?” she asked in a small voice. “I’ve never seen beasts like that.”

  “They’re dogs,” James said. “Domesticated wolves. Closest thing you’d probably know.” he said having already had this conversation a few times.

  She nodded faintly.

  Up close, she looked barely out of her teens, maybe twenty at most. Soft features smudged with dirt, chestnut hair tied back poorly with loose strands falling into her eyes. Her leather armor was scuffed and ill-fitted, straps mismatched, like it had been repaired too many times by someone who wasn’t very good at it. A small backpack hung crooked on her shoulders, and a pair of daggers were strapped to her thighs, one of them slightly upside down.

  Of course.

  James dragged a hand down his face. “Another flag. This world is absolutely written by light novel authors.”

  “You saved me,” she said at last, bowing so hard she nearly fell over. “I owe you my life!”

  “Nope.” He threw his hands up and turned away. “Not doing this.”

  “W, wait!” she called. “You can’t just leave me here!”

  “Oh, I absolutely can,” he replied, already walking.Christine would kill him. Also, she was way too young. And clumsy. And, nope. “You got out here on your own. You can get back the same way. I’m heading back to my party before this turns into an incident.” not dealing with harem nonsense he thought to himself. He sent a mental nudge to the dogs and they ran back and quickly pulled the ears off the goblins, James was not leaving money on the ground.

  Footsteps followed him. At a careful distance.

  The dogs glanced back and growled low whenever she edged closer. Once she even flinched, tripped over a root, caught herself, and kept going anyway. James sighed.

  “Of course you’re following me.” he said more to himself than to her. Again this place feels like someone wrote flags into the DNA another thought came through

  Using his Slate’s map, James made a beeline for his family, their markers clustered just off to the side in a gray patch he hadn’t fully explored yet.

  This system really need a party-shared map function, he thought as he pushed through undergrowth and followed what passed for a game trail.

  He emerged into a small clearing to find the family already at work. Christine and Jessie were harvesting herbs from marked patches while Luke sorted bundles. Nikki stood watch near the treeline, bow in hand.

  The moment James made noise, Nikki drew and knocked an arrow, sighting down the shaft with ease. Obviously she had been practicing.

  “Whoa, friendly!” James raised a hand quickly.

  The tension eased once she recognized him, the bow lowering. “You’re lucky,” she said flatly. “I almost gave you a new hole in your head.”

  “Appreciate the restraint, but we both know you would have missed.” James replied. Sticking out his tongue

  The dogs burst ahead of him, bounding into the clearing and nearly bowling Luke and Jessie over in their enthusiasm. Their fur was clean now, courtesy of a quick spell James had barely noticed himself casting earlier.

  “That’s not fair,” Jessie complained, laughing as she stumbled. “They’re bonded to you.”

  “Well, I spend the most time with them,” James said. “Besides, what would I have done without them since you all wandered off without me? Besides they are bonded to the family…they just like me better” James grinned.”

  That earned him a few sheepish looks.

  As James crossed the clearing toward Christine, Nikki stiffened again.

  “You’ve got company,” she said.

  Before James could respond, Nikki loosed an arrow into the treeline. It struck bark inches from the girl following him.

  A startled yelp followed.

  “Next one’s through your eye,” Nikki called out calmly.

  James rushed forward and pushed her bow down. “Sorry. Thought she’d stop following me.”

  “She?” Christine asked.

  The look she gave him could have drilled stone.

  “Random girl I saved from goblins,” James said quickly. “Nothing else happened. I tried to leave her behind. She followed me and the dogs.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Christine said dryly.

  “Just ignore her,” James muttered. “She’ll go away. I am not adding drama to our current situation.”

  Christine continued to stare at him as if evaluating his long-term survival chances.

  James turned toward the girl with a sigh. “Introductions, I guess. Not that I wanted you following me into the woods. Was one brush with death not enough for today?”

  “Yeah,” Nikki added. “Who follows a strange man into the woods?”

  The girl hesitated, clearly confused by the hostility, then straightened, pasted on a wide smile, and stepped forward.

  “My name is Iona,”

  She tripped on absolutely nothing.

  Iona went head over heels, landing face-first in the dirt. Her skirt, something James definitely did not notice or question the practicality of, rode up as she sprawled. James facepalmed hard.

  “I’m telling you,” he muttered to Christine, eyes firmly averted, “some isekai writer died and reincarnated as the god of this world, and every trope is baked into its DNA.”

  “I’m sorry,” Iona said, scrambling to fix herself, mortified. “I can be… clumsy.”

  Christine introduced the family, then cut straight to the point.

  “Why are you following my husband?”

  “He saved me,” Iona said earnestly. “I owe him my life.”

  “You can repay me,” James said, “by leaving and not getting into more trouble.”

  Despite that, the group agreed to escort Iona back to town once the herb-gathering was done. In the meantime, James turned his attention to the RV’s upgrade list, he had noted down some of what they needed. Deciding it was as good a time as any to start gathering materials.

  He pulled an axe from his magic bag and paused.

  The thing still amazed him. It looked like a simple rucksack, but inside it was closer to a ten-by-ten room. Once something went in, time effectively stopped for it. He knew right away it should be considered rare and would need to keep it away from prying eyes. Most people carried backpacks and bags full of gear that he had seen so far, no one had used anything like a magic bag that he had seen. It made him wonder who Kaelith was, to just give them something like this.

  He approached a decent-sized tree, took a practice swing, and nearly buried the axe head half way through the trunk.

  James blinked.

  With a few consecutive follow up swings dropping the tree to the ground. “Timber” he called out, with a small grin on his face always wanted to say that

  “Huh,” he muttered. “So much for going back to the gym.”

  Even with strength being something of a dump stat, his E-rank strength, boosted by achievements, was doing way more work than expected.

  While James chopped wood and later cracked stones with a pickaxe, stuffing the materials into his bag, the kids talked with Iona. Despite skipping the guild’s history lecture, they were clearly still hungry for information.

  Luke, glancing at her Slate, frowned. “Your stats are… rough.”

  Iona winced. “My luck is F. Most of my stats are F. Charisma’s a C, though.”

  “That explains why you thought the ‘saved by a stranger’ thing might work,” Luke said.

  She blinked. “…Is that bad?”

  “Yes,” Luke and Nikki said together.

  James finished stacking materials and looked back at his family, working, talking, adapting.

  They still wanted to go home. But for now, this world was real, and looking at his work on the trees and rock, changing them.

  He tightened his grip on the axe.

  We’ll make the best of it, he thought. Until we figure out what comes next.

  After nearly an hour of picking herbs in the clearing, the sun had begun its slow tilt toward the horizon. That was James’s signal.

  They couldn’t afford to be caught outside the city walls after dark.

  By the time they regrouped near the RV, James’s inventory was close to full, logs, stone, and anything else the vehicle’s upgrade menu had flagged as potentially useful. His magic bag had done most of the heavy lifting. Luke and Jessie, less fortunate, were stuck with rucksacks stuffed to the seams with herbs, grumbling quietly as they adjusted the straps.

  The dogs ranged ahead and back, rotating positions like they’d practiced it. They gave Iona a wide berth.

  She hadn’t helped her case.

  She tripped twice on nothing at all, nearly taking Jessie down with her once, and caught herself on Luke’s shoulder another time with a panicked yelp. How someone with the balance of a newborn deer and zero apparent survival instincts had decided adventuring was a good career choice was beyond James’s understanding.

  They made it back to the RV without incident.

  Iona stared at the vehicle like it might bite her.

  “It’s… enormous,” she said, circling it cautiously. Her confusion only deepened when James demonstrated the extensions. Panels slid outward, space unfolding in ways that made her blink several times in rapid succession.

  “That’s not how wagons work,” she said weakly.

  “Neither is this world,” James replied.