Chương 21: BS...S

Ch 21: BS... S John stood at the entrance to the guard station feeling more than a little out of place. He saw a number of the muscular armored guards that kept Avalon safe filtering into and out of the station. Some of them were dragging in unruly vampires covered in black sacks, others were mounting up on horses or drakes to take to their patrols, and a few were even working on strengthening the wards on the station itself, their purple pointed hats marking them as mage-guards.

John took a deep breath and walked up the steps and went inside. If the outside was busy, then the inside was chaos. Screaming, spells getting stopped midair, necromancers being booked along with a hundred of their skeletons. He waited in the line for the front desk until he reached the centaur that was standing behind the desk.

"What is it?" he asked, his tone tired and uninviting.

"I'm uh, John Miner. I was asked to come here to consult on something by a guardsman named Dirk? He recently helped me with a client that had a cursed amulet."

"Oh yeah, he mentioned you'd be by. Just let me page him." John nodded. The centaur put a hand on either side of his mouth.

"DIRK! THE BRAIN GUY IS HERE!" John jumped at the loudness of the bellow from the hooved guard. That wasn't exactly how he'd expected him to page his associate. Dirk appeared from around the corner and smiled when he saw John.

"There you are! Let's get you away from this guy before he tramples you."

"Fuck you Dirk," replied the Centaur.

"We've talked about this. I'm pretty sure you'd kill me," said Dirk with a smile as he started to move John along.

"Hey John, thanks for coming by." He shook his head as he stepped over some particularly brightly colored vomit that had pooled in front of a leprechaun.

"It's no problem at all. The guard has always been quick to respond to me, so I'm happy to help however I can."

"We're just doing our jobs," said Dirk, opening a door to a hallway. As they walked through the chaos and noise behind them was greatly muffled and the guard took a moment to take a breath.

"It is wild out there today. Usually we don't see this kind of rush until around Hollytide." John chuckled a little.

"Oh, I was worried for a moment that was what it looked like every day."

"If it was like that every day, I'd be working in a tavern mopping floors instead of this." They made their way to the end of the hall and Dirk paused.

"Did I tell you what the problem was? I just realized I should probably talk to you about it first."

"That uh, tends to help. No, you just told me you needed some help with a particular person. Something about him being delusional?"

"Yes. He's not really all that dangerous, but we've had to place him in a cell for his own safety. He keeps trying to run out into the woods and fight things. Says he's 'grinding' levels? It seemed like something you might be able to help with better than we could. John shrugged.

"I can certainly try." Dirk nodded and opened another large room which contained a long row of individual cells. They walked past a one eyed gnome that dramatically drew a thumb across his neck when they made eye contact, then a succubus that made a number of tempting entreaties while she pressed herself against the bars, and finally they came to a cell where a man was sitting with his legs crossed seemingly meditating.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Dirk knocked on the bars.

"Hey Jake, I brought someone I'd like you to talk to."

"Just a moment. I'm trying to further my understanding of blunt force so I can increase the strength of my fists. My status sheet says I'm close." John waited a moment, looking at the man. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that looked like they'd seen better days and had long brown hair that was starting to clump into dreads. He very suddenly opened his eyes and stood up pumping his fist.

"Ding!" he yelled dramatically.

"I was able to improve my stat by just meditating. Maybe eventually I'll be able to replace my sleep with meditation, then I'll be able to double my progress." John saw that the man's eyes were bloodshot and could immediately tell that less sleep would not be a road that he should go down.

"Hey Jake, I'm John. Dirk here asked me to talk to you a bit."

"Oh, good. Maybe you can convince him to let me leave? I'm improving, but I know my progress will be faster out of here."

"Maybe," said John noncommittally.

"Can you explain to me what you mean by progress?"

"Leveling progress. Initially it was only stat and skill progress, but when I found this awakening stone it revealed my class as 'Saviour of All Greatest Dragon Warrior of Power'". He held out what looked to be a plain rock. John looked at Dirk who grimaced a bit and leaned to whisper to him.

"We checked, it's just a regular stone."

"I'm sorry, can you go into a bit more detail for me? Stats, skills, levels. What exactly are you seeing?"

"No problem," he closed his eyes.

"The blue boxes tell me the following: Name: Jake Onasa Race: Human Class: Saviour of All Greatest Dragon Warrior of Power Level: 2 Stats: Strength- 32 Dexterity- 35 Endurance- 40 Charisma-23 Wisdom- 27 Intelligence- 45 Paths- ""That's enough," interrupted John.

"I think I get the picture of what you're talking about." The man was clearly unwell. He'd actually said where each tab, colon, and dash was on this sheet he claimed to see as well as the other information.

"So, you're saying that you see a kind of manifestation of who you are laid out in numbers that tell you exactly how good you are at things?"

"The system, yes. I assume I'm the only one who can see it because I've been chosen for great things. That's probably why I'm the only one from my world pulled here."

"You from Earth?" asked John.

"Yes."

"I am also from Earth. There's quite a lot of us, actually."

"Ah. Well, it's a shame the universe had so many false starts trying to reach a true hero like me."

"It's definitely a shame in a number of ways, yes." John frowned.

"So, you believe that you can increase these stats, and levels through hard work and fighting? Is that why you keep going into the outskirts and trying to fight things?"

"Obviously. I need to see these numbers go up as fast as possible. Hopefully I figure out some kind of cheat skill too. Maybe I can copy enemy powers?"

"Anything's possible," said John.

"I'll tell you what, let me talk to Dirk here for a minute and try to advocate for you a bit. Why don't you try meditating on the cot for a minute focusing on the softness of the padding. Think of how much more powerful your blows would be if you could relax yourself completely before tensing for a strike."

"That's a really good idea," said Jake as he went to lay down on the bed. He closed his eyes, and was snoring in moments. Dirk whistled.

"That was impressive. I've been trying to get him to sleep all day."

"I've seen this before," said John, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I call it Blue Screen Syndrome. A lot of people react in very extreme ways to the stress of the new world. Making the world into a series of numbers helps to make it make sense for them. Usually they get themselves killed at least once or twice before I can help them."

"Jeez. You can fix him though?"

"Eventually, but in the short term we'll need to use the delusions to trick him into keeping healthy. Run him a bath and tell him it's 'mana water' that washing in will improve his power, get him a meal of meatballs and call them 'essence stones' and then let him hit on a post outside with a training sword for a while. I'll get some money together and get him a place to stay with some other outworlders."

"Eh, take your time. He's safe in the holding cell for now, and I can keep an eye on him here."

"I appreciate it." He shook his head.

"You know, the first time this happened I actually believed the guy for a good long while."

"Oh really?"

"I mean, with how much is new here it made more sense to go along with it than to think he was having delusions. Of course, that changed pretty quickly when he tried to pick a fight with a cyclops."

"Ouf. He got stomped out?"

"Yep… he seemed happy to have 'leveled up his durability' though."