The luncheon went more or less well - we kept talking about stuff we missed, things we found. Calia’d gotten pretty good at navigating the city, though from what I could tell she preferred walking around early in the morning - before there were people out. It was a habit I shared from before I came here, and probably wasn’t going to lose anytime soon. Eventually, I noticed something off though.I couldn’t properly put it into a rational feeling, but it was like a silent fire alarm going off in my ears - not remotely as painful, but just as annoying.

  My distraction caught Calia’s attention, as she suddenly tapped on my wrist. “Hey. Are you alright?” She asked with concern.

  “Oh. Uhm. yeah. There’s just… I feel like I forgot something? but in a way that’s almost like a migraine?” I shrugged helplessly. “Hoping I’m not sick.”

  “Forgetting… oh, yeah! have you gotten any quests?” Calia asked.

  “Quests?”

  “In your menu?”

  “Oh. I haven’t… really been levelling much, and I don’t look at it much past that.” I admitted with a nervous shrug.

  “You… should really, uhm. Check that.” Calia replied, crossing her hands across her legs with a look that… well, I’d usually reserve for sick cats and particularly dim canines.

  “Yeah. Guess I will.” I said before stuffing the sausage roll in my face, using the bite of meat pastry to avoid saying anything else stupid while I opened up my screen.

  “What’s this… statistics?” I asked, looking over a dull blue card.

  Noah Ardennes Beginner Druid

  Total Level: 4

  Statistics:

  ________________________________________________

  | |

  | Quest Complete! |

  | Farmer’s duty! |

  | | |_____________________________________________ __|

  As I read down the list, I cocked my head and gaped at the .“How is ‘quest complete’ a statistic?”

  Calia gave a derisive snort. “When a quest finishes the stats are hidden under a big menu. It’s honestly pretty annoying that there’s jank in a magical Isekai videogame. It makes it kinda hard to compare stats.”

  I just gave a nod, noting how quickly Calia’s nervousness changed to irritation the moment we started talking about video game mechanics.

  I started reading the quest aloud, “Farmer’s pupil: by completing the farmer’s retrieval mission, you have obtained level five as a farmer profession… what’s the difference between a quest and a mission?” I asked, confused.

  “Missions are like… Objectives for quests. they’re sub-quests.” Calia replied.

  “Why aren’t they called objectives, then?” I asked.

  Calia gave a long sigh, “Because the system’s not very well-designed.”

  I just gave a shrug, squinting through some text that didn’t matter before the end bit. “It says ‘skill with staves, Scythes, slings, pitchforks and sickles increased by 10, and that I now have ‘Farmer's Heart’. Dunno what that means. Oh, and that I can cook bread bowls!...Could I not do that before?” I asked aloud with a frown. This whole thing was confusing to me.

  “Wait, that’s from a profession? that’s a lot of weapon skill for a profession.” She noted with a look of surprise… though then her eyes narrowed with a discerning eye. “...But those do sound like bad weapons, so I’m not surprised.”

  “Well, that’s just what druids get, I can’t help that.” I replied, putting my hands up defensively.

  “Oh, I don’t mean like it’s your fault, or anything.” Calia’s mouth ran a mile a minute, her cheeks going pink as she sat up straight in her chair. “I’m sorry! it’s just… usually in RPG’s these would not be the best weapons. Like, except the scythe, maybe? this place probably has end-game scythes, they’re pretty popular, so just wait for that!”

  “Are they?I don’t know my RPG’s.” I admitted with a helpless look.

  “...Sometimes.” She mumbled. “A-and they’re still useful enough for a caster. Though you’re doing… shapeshifting, right?”

  I shook my head vigorously. “No. But Victor does not need to know that!” I insisted, already feeling a headache coming on just thinking about him.

  “Oh. Victor said you were very enthusiastic about it…” Calia replied. “And it seems like a good self-defense skill-”

  “-Which I do not need! I’m not the one destined for killing or fighting anything, that’s your job! I’m going to sit back and chill, and not fight a goddamn thing, and it’s no one’s business if I ever grab a single shapeshifting skill!” I snapped with venom.

  All of those words I’d reserved for a conversation with Victor came back with a vengeance and slapped themselves across Calia’s face, leaving her shocked and glaring.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “I’m.. Sorry. That was really mean of me. You didn’t deserve any of that. It was… I was thinking of a different conversation entirely.”

  My expression was helpless, as I realized that was not

  Calia’s face hardened. “Yeah. I imagine whoever that’s for won’t like it very much either.”

  I looked away helplessly, before adding, “I just don’t get why Victor and everyone else is pushing me to join in on this whole hero thing. I don’t have the personality or the powers for it. And I’d just get in the way.”

  “How do you know that without even trying, huh?” Calia asks with a glare, before her face softens.. “...I’d want you to be along, too.”

  My mouth ran a mile a minute, trying to find a way out of this spiral, a polite way to exit this rabbit-hole. “I mean, if you had the choice, would you throw yourself into a battle you know you’re not going to be useful in and risk your own life when you could… you know, not? It just feels like everyone’s pushing me into…”

  Calia’s cheerful presence that I’d enjoyed till now, tensed with stress with every word, and before she spoke up, I knew what I’d done, I could hear the buffoon I was being, but I couldn’t actually stop myself.

  “...Yeah. I don’t have a choice.” Calia replied with a frown. “unless I think of dying and dooming everyone else as a choice. So I guess I can’t see it from your point of view.”

  “Calia, I just mean that I’m- you know, I’m bad. And you’ll just… be good at it. So you’re the one to do it…” I sputter,

  “I was just hoping to talk about it alongside someone else, someone normal. Someone who also got how scary this all is. And I guess I did, just… whatever. I’m being selfish. I’m… I’m gonna go.” She snapped, anger and sadness all wrapped up in her voice in the same package.

  “Calia, I just… you don’t get how useless I was! in life! How am I supposed to figure any of this out?” I protested, feeling the color drain from my cheeks. I didn’t want to say any of this. I wanted to shut up. to stop. But that argumentative piece of me kept pushing out, and it wasn’t stopping.

  “...Hasn’t stopped the rest of us. I guess… go enjoy your life, Noah.” She sighed, standing up. “...I’m going to go. Please don’t come see me again today.”

  The rasp she spoke in made her sound like a man in the desert dying of thirst. And choking. I wanted to get up, take it all back, put a hand on her shoulder, tell her I’d fight this encroaching ultimate evil…

  But the words stuck in my throat and I sat there as she walked off, drumming my fingers on the table.

  Didn’t feel good about myself. Felt pretty correct in feeling not good about myself. I got up after a long sigh and choked back a few tears as I headed to the cart, hoping to get back home before anything else happened.

  “Hey, kid.” Ambrose’s voice fell across the din, as the baker stood behind me.. “you should head home here. Take this.”

  A cookie slid into my hands, to my surprise. “...I don’t think I really deserve this.”

  The older man placed a hand on my shoulder, spinning me to look at him. I somehow managed to meet his eyes as he took on a fatherly tone.

  “...Had a fight like that with my wife when I was young. I was the asshole too. And don’t get me wrong - you were a dick.”

  Part of me was annoyed at the insinuation, but the logical part of me knew he was right. It doesn’t matter if I was right or not, everything I said to her was… probably as insensitive as I could have put it.

  “But you’re young. You kids have it way rougher than everyone else, even if you have it easier than those other four. It is just four, right? there’s not like some secret group of people summoned extra?”

  I just gave a desperate shrug. “not as far as I know. Just… just one jerk.” I replied.

  “If you’d sat here acting like some self-important jackass, I’d have probably banned you for a good while, ‘till your attitude got an adjustment. But I can tell you know you messed up, so I’m not about to kick a man while he’s down. Look at it this way - you have a while to figure out how to apologize, and you don’t gotta do it all in one day. Eat this, feel better, and learn what you probably should from this encounter.”

  “Which is?”

  “Doubling down just makes your girlfriend twice as mad.”

  I gave a nervous smile, heart feeling like it was punched in the gut by the insinuation. “Oh, uhm, she’s… we only met today. So she’s not my girlfriend.

  Ambrose just gave me a long silence, something inscrutable in his expression as he eventually replied with a stoic “Uh-huh.”

  Ambrose turned to start clearing the table with a cloth, collecting the crumbs. “Say hi to Adam and the rest for me. And tell Mary that I better see her butt in the store sometime this month. I let her get away with too many pie thefts to be stand-offish with unkie now!”

  “I’ll… keep that in mind.” I nod. “Just… give me a minute to collect myself.” I spoke up, using the fancy word for ‘trying to stand up without crying.’

  “Aye. No problem. Look at it this way, kid… day’s gonna be all uphill from here!”