There, good. Now. We both know there’s no trying for the power I want because I don’t know what that is. Like I said before, my life would have been a whole lot easier if I’d known what I wanted at any point during it.
Let’s simplify, okay? What might I want out of this life?
Easy. Already said it. Peace and quiet. So…a house and…no idea what else I’d want with that.
But one thing I know is that nothing’s free in this world, and I doubt it will be in the next. So, I’m going to need a way to make money.
“What’s the literacy lev—wait, you said no printing press, so no widespread literacy.” What do you know, my memory kicked in. To point out I wasn’t getting an easy income.
I was a writer before the world ended. No, not a successful one. I’m not one of those who went into writing to make money(and trust me, those are mostly disappointed) I didn’t even get into it for the love of the craft. I wrote because I got fed up not finding books I wanted to read.
And to show other writer how it should be done.
Wait, there’s going to be a nobility class—always is—and they are going to know how to read. I could do what DaVinci did and get myself a patron, write what they want and….
Yeah. That’s not going to work. We had an internet equivalent, and it never brought me all that much money. It’s the writing for someone else part I suck at. That means research and I
So, what else is there? I am not going the adventurer route. I wrote enough about dungeons not to want anything to do with them. I don’t
Maybe?
“How big is this world? What options do people have when traveling? How is cargo moved from city to city?”
She looks through the papers. “Its diameter is close enough to the world you came from it might be nothing more than a rounding error. Land travel is by wagon, usually in caravans. While the landmasses vary, four of them are in the range of Africa. Water travel is by boat, although there is the occasional air ship that someone manages to get working. Those have yet to survive the death of their creator. Same with the land carriage that make use of magic. At this moment, only thirteen such magical vehicle exists, spread over land, water and air.”
Okay, this is a starting—
“I want a truck.”
Stop! Come on. Think for once. This is an Isekai LitRPG. We’ve written Lit, so you know how that goes. And Fred’s talked about Isekai. Cheat powers start small and build as you level up.
“I mean…. If I want a truck, eventually. A rig. Eighteen wheels and—” she’s mind reader. You don’t— “right. You already know that.” I take a breath. “How would that work if I want to end up with a truck that can drive around that world? It would have to go offroad. But not in the air,” I hurry to add. Dear Lords, not in the air. “I have vertigo.”
She hmms as she looks through the papers. The pencil appears as she starts making notes. “Does it have to be a truck? You’re allocated a significant amount of…cheat energy, to use your parlance, which needs to be spent, but there are ways of getting more out of it. For example. If, instead of a truck, you were satisfied with a jeep, we could enhance its already good road capability a little and give it extra dimensional storage. That would be much simpler for the accounting than something the size of an eighteen wheeler enhanced to the same specification.”
She reads some more. “Water capability is tricky. It would have to be something introduced further along. This is where a soft system works against you. But what if I link it to an attribute? No. I don’t think that would work. The only attribute that would work for that is Envy and what I read in your mind tells me you wouldn’t care to grind that just to go on the water.”
She straightens. “Oh. What about a system independent from the system? This is soft enough to allow it.” She taps the pencil against her lips. “But what could…” it stills. “How do you feel about a marketable familiar?”
Wait, she’s no longer just talking, that was directed at me. I kick my brain into gear and make sure I don’t get distracted. “I’m going to take it from the top, because that’s a lot. Carrying capacity is more important to me than what it looks like. I went with a rig because that’s what I used to drive for a living. It’s what I think of when—” I said to not get distracted. “But you know all that. So, yeah. Storage is fine. And I can live without this going on water.”
I catch up to the last thing she said. “What’s a marketable familiar?” and immediately realize I forgot something. “Oh, and about what it can carry. Can part of that be made into a sleeper section? A rig would come with a bet and very small living space with a fridge and—I can live without the extras, but I’d really like to be able to just go in the back when I need to sleep.” And that brings up another concern. “What kind of protection will I have in the jeep? There’s kind of open to the environment, like the weather and bandits. I would really like something between me and all of that. I would hate for my jeep to be blown up and my clients to lose their cargo—and me get hurt.”
Hey, at least I thought of I before I was in the middle of getting shot at. But, wow. When did our priorities shift? What happened to no cargo is worth the driver’s life?
“What you’re remembering are military versions from movies. Those needed to be open so the actors could be seen. The real life equivalent also needed to be open for the soldiers to shoot.” The pencil moves with a fury across the page that makes it clear she’s not writing, but I have no idea what she might be doing. “What I have in mind is a civilian model, which comes enclosed. Although it’s only aluminium and shatter resistant glass made to protect against collisions, not the kind of projectiles you might encounter in this world.” The pencil returned to tapping her lips. “Oh, I know.” She added information on the page. “I can link it to this.”
Then the pencil vanishes as she reaches for the—no, into the paper. “This is a marketable familiar.” She pulls her hand out, and she’s holding a small tiger plushie by the scruff. I swear it’s made of pencil lead as it lifts off the page then it’s like the lead can’t go any further and it turns into, well, a plushie. It’s about a foot and a half tall, wearing classic blue mechanic’s coverall. It even has a name tag, although no name written on it. It’s positioned sitting, hands and feet extended forward as if it’s on a chair and asking me to pick it up.
You have no idea how hard it is to not do just that.
“If you accept it—” like there’s any question I will. “It will handle the repairs and upgrades of your vehicle, and that lets us link those upgrades to it and the vehicle itself instead of to your attributes, which would mean accounting for that in the budget. With it, I’d set up a parallel points system—” she considers something. “With an optional resource one if you want to dabble into crafting and gathering.”
That could be fun. And if I get to save points for other stuff, even better.
And that’s when I notice the tiger plushie’s eyes. Where they were looking ahead, they’re now looking at me.
It gives a shake, then looks at its paws, which it moves before it. Then over its shoulders. “Lady.” Its voice is that of a young man. Not particularly deep, but definitely an adult. “Not that I mind existing, and all that. But shouldn’t you have checked that he wanted me before giving me life?”
“Oh,” she replies in an overly dismissive tone. “We’re outside normal reality. You’re barely more than a prototype, much less a living creature at the moment.”
The tiger crosses its arms over its chest. “Not doing all that much for my ego.” Then, as if it decided to put her out of his mind, he looks at me and extends a paw. “Hey Bub. Nice to make your acquaintance.”
“Hey there.” My mouth already hurt from the smile. I gently take him from her. Well, if she wanted me sidetracked. She certainly accomplished that. “I’m Sylvester. What’s your name?”
He looks surprised and I realize he might just wanted me to shake his hand. “You know….” Or maybe it’s the question that surprised him? “I don’t seem to have one. Maybe the broad is right about me being nothing more than a prototype.” I smile at the noir-esk way he speaks. He’d make a fun detective character. He covers the side of his mouth and speaks out of it in a conspiratorial whisper. “Or, you know. Maybe she wants you to name me. Get you all emotionally invested and what not.” He frowns. “You know, I have this odd sense I should be looking out for you, even if it doesn’t end up helping me. Can’t say I mind. You look like someone I can trust.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Oh.” I chuckle. I have to. “She doesn’t have to worry about that. I’m already invested.” Then the chuckle drops. “But you might want to pick your own name. I suck at naming and I don’t have the internet to go to for help.”
“I don’t know what that is. And I don’t know what name I should have. I don’t think I can name myself.” He looks over his shoulder. “Don’t you think that’s something of an oversight on your part?”
“You are—”
“Yeah, yeah. Not even real.” He lowers his voice again. “I fell pretty real, if you ask me.”
He, yes, he. I’ve been thinking of him like that for a bit now without realizing it. Maybe it’s my ‘guy’ bias, but he feels like a guy. A tiger guy.
I grin.
I am so going to need a minute here.
Minute over. Time to…
“Okay. But I’m warning you. I suck at names.”
“You said that already.”
“Yes, but I want to make sure you know that if you don’t like whatever I manage to think up, you can—”
“Actually,” the woman at the desk says, “as a prototype, he can be—”
I pull him to my chest and step back. “You aren’t doing anything to him. He’s perfect as he is.”
He mumbles something, and I realize I have him pressed nearly flat. I hurry to loosen my hold.
“Not that I mind you defending me.” He shakes his shoulders and regains volume there. “But how about you don’t do it with so much vigor next time? There’s only so much stress my stuffing can take.”
“Sorry.”
“So. About that name?”
“Right. And remember, you have to tell me if you don’t like it. I doubt I’m going to come up with a good one on the first….”
And there’s one there, at the front of my mind.
The fact I remember it has to mean it’s meant to be. I wrote that story like…decades ago. The last time I looked at it was a few years back, and I suck at remembering names. So….
“How about Lao Hu?” I ask tentatively. Then I can’t leave it at that. “If you don’t like it, it’s fine. I told you. I’m no good at names. He’s a character. A tiger. And it’s Chinese for…maybe Japanese for—”
“I like it.”
“You don’t have to say that just because I’m the one who gave it to you. Look, if this partnership is going to work, you can’t just agree to what I say. You have to be able to tell me when I screw up or when I hurt your feelings. I can be so oblivious to other people’s emotions at times.”
I take a breath.
He locks eyes with me. “You done?”
I nod.
He puts a small paw on each side of my face and stands, not breaking eye contact. “I. Like. It.” He waits a beat. “We good?”
I nod again, and Lao Hu appears on his name tag.
“Ah. Who’s a prototype now,” he tells her, and I’m surprised he doesn’t add a word I’d have to censor. Maybe for all his brashness he realizes that there’s only so far he can go toward the person who created him. “Now,” he tells me. “How about we get back to the negotiations? I want a jeep to work on.”
Jeep? You have no idea how much effort it takes me to pull my attention away from the living, talking tiger in my arms and recall whatever I was dealing with before his arrival.
But he is right. There’s a Jeep to be had, well, negotiated, if I want to earn a living to pay for my cottage away from everything.
“I have my mechanic. You said he’ll take care of the future enhancements. So, what am I starting with? How much cargo space? Is it going to be a physical space I can step into, or just a portal items vanish into? If that’s what it’ll be. How to I get something specific out? You have no idea how annoying it is to have to empty the trailer to pull out one item just because the loaders never considered the order of delivery. Oh. Will I be able to transport people too? Or I guess it’s as well? Or is that instead?”
I might still be hyper from Lao Hu’s arrival.
“Oh, and I don’t remember what you said about my living space within the Jeep.”
She chuckled. “That is because I’ve yet to address that. But that will be part of the upgrades. At least if you want to hit the ground able to make some profit.” She reaches for the board behind her and pulls it to the side, causing a second one to manifest, and both have different information from what had been on the previous one. “This is what you’ll start with.”
On the left board is a Jeep. Olive green, enclosed with a hard top and sides. With it there, I vaguely remember seeing that previously. Either while on the road or when doing research for a story. I’m pretty sure I have a character who drives a Jeep.
“It comes with about thirty cubic feet of cargo in real space.” The information adds itself to the right board while the Jeep rotates and the back opens to show the cargo space. “Along with that, you will have a simple ten by ten by eight feet of extra dimensional space you can access when you open the tailgate. The Jeep must be parked for that to happen.” The back closes, and when it opens again, instead of seeing the interior of the jeep, I’m looking at a white glow and something that is more the impression of the space she described than concrete.
“When you aren’t driving it, you can unsummon and summon it at will. For safety reasons, it can’t be dismissed while living creatures are in the extra dimensional space, or within the real world inside of the Jeep.” Implying that yes, I’ll be able to take on passengers at some point. “Lao Hu is an exception. While technically alive, he is as much part of the jeep as part of you. When both are dismissed, he’ll be able to do work on it, allowing him to repair or install upgrades if he has the required material or points. When dismissed, Lao Hu will remain aware of what you are aware of. That is both to prevent the damage sensory deprivation can cause and so he will know what he’s being summoned back into.”
The image zooms into the white glow, and now the inside is defined, although there is literally nothing there. “Making passengers comfortable will be part of the upgrades. To start with, the Air Conditioning only affect the real world part of the Jeep, while the extra dimensional remains affected by the outside environment. The exceptions are that it will never run out of air or become filled with something that would endanger the people inside. So even if the jeep ends up submerged, they will be safe, although opening the tailgate will allow that water in.”
“No using it as an airlock. Got it.”
“As you might have gathered by how I talked.” She motions to the right board and a lot of information added itself. “I’ve devised a system of points or material to spend on upgrading the Jeep. Points are gained through distance traveled and are attributed on successful transportation of goods to their destination.”
“Does the system handle the contracts? I mean, what decides how much I’ll get paid?”
“Payment is to be negotiated between you and your clients. The materials needed for the upgrades will depend on the level of upgrades and what the upgrades are. You can expect them to be mundane at low levels and require magical components at higher. Additionally, outside magic can be used to increase the extra dimensional storage, but that is then on you to ensure it is maintained so nothing inside it gets damaged.”
She looks at her papers. “That covers the jeep. There are some points left over in the budget we can use for…other things. Like increasing your starting cargo space, or giving the glove compartment bag of holding capabilities. Or—” she gives me a small smile. “—it could be something entirely cosmetic.”
It’s the first time she’s given me a smile that felt directed at me, so it’s got to mean something. Not that I have any idea what. But I have more important things to deal with, anyway.
“Lao Hu, are you going to remember any of that? I can promise you that within an hour of leaving here I’ll have forgotten half of what’s there.”
“Sure thing, Bub. It’s a pretty simply system, if you think about it.”
“Only if I remember it, and trust me. I won’t.”
Being able to replace points with material is nice. Well, depending on the material I need. It’s also good the Jeep’s advancement is based on how much I use it, instead of my levels because it meant it will progress, instead of what I’ll be doing.
“Just to confirm, the extra dimensional storage in on top of the physical space in the back of the jeep, right?” It looked to be separate, but I don’t want to take that for granted. I have a bad habit of taking stuff for granted.
“It is indeed apart.”
Which means I can use it to sleep until I have a proper bunk. The back seat should fold down.
“How does summoning the jeep work? I mean, do I get to choose where it appears, or will it only appear where it was when I dismissed it?”
“So long as there is enough space for it, you can summon it anywhere within your immediate surroundings.” She reads. “Let’s say, five feet around you. Independently of where it was when unsummoned. It means that, should you decide to cross a body of water, you can dismiss it before embarking and summon it once you have reached the other side.”
That extra in the budget makes adding something for passengers tempting, but, knowing me, I’d give into the temptation to take them on well before I’m familiar with the geography of this new world. Somehow, I doubt maps are easy or cheap to get. I guess that on a world not run by clocks, they probably aren’t in as much of a hurry to get places as we were.
“I’m going to take the glove compartment,” I say before I talk myself into a bad decision. “I’m going to need a place to put the nicknacks and not having to worry about that filing up will be good.”
The disappointment is covered up so fast with her ‘service with a smile’ that it might have been my imagination. “Unless there are more questions, I believe we are done here.”
I go over the essentials. Lao Hu. The Jeep—I’m going to have to come up with a name for it. Oh joy. I have what it can do and Lao Hu what it can potentially do. That covers it all.
Well, no. It doesn’t. You can be sure that I’m going to realize I forgot a detail and that it’s going to turn out to be important. But I had to get used to that decades ago.
“I can’t think of anything more. What happens n—”
And yes. That’s another scene change.