Taula stood outside the closed shop, wearing her Adventurer's Gear which consisted of light armor all over her body and thigh-high black stockings and an oversized axe weapon on the back of her armor.
"Is Esteemed Customer Klaus no longer coming…?" She muttered under her breath.
Maybe she had given him bad customer service yesterday and he refused to come along, which she could understand… she wasn't exactly the nicest person. 'I lost a customer for Grandma…'
She almost teared up.
"Hey!" She heard a familiar voice and turned to see Klaus running up toward her. She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes before smiling.
"Esteemed Customer!" He arrived next to her, letting out several breaths. Running such a long distance was definitely tiring. "Good morning to you."
"Morning to you too, Taula." Klaus stood properly, catching his breath.
He was wearing his own light armor and the storage ring where he kept his weapons since he wasn't physically strong enough to start carrying four swords on him for a long distance. "So where is this place you're talking about?"
"Right… It's Yerefall Grove." Taula replied as they started walking toward one of the two exits of Galen Town.
'Yerefall Grove? Oh right, that mini-dungeon that exists outside the town.' Klaus thought. He remembered the place from the game but not that much honestly.
"It's a smaller dungeon than the Galen Dungeon and contains a lot of herbs, so the few alchemists in Galen Town gather there to collect some herbs. It belongs to the Mayor and he says he won't sell it though, or else another person would have taken ownership of the whole dungeon." Taula explained.
At least he made it so that they could collect the herbs while paying a fine instead of closing it completely off like some people in the city did.
"I see…" Klaus replied, and it tallied with the little he remembered about the place.
He also remembered that after plucking the herbs, they grew back after a while without the need for replanting as long as their twigs were still there though that was more of a talk between players of Story Mode.
"But the herbs in Yerefall Grove are mediocre compared to what we can import from the main cities like the Capital, so the herbs you want will be there." She said.
After a couple of minutes, they were at the second large gate that led out of the town, Two guards wearing blue uniforms and gold helmets stood there.
"Halt!" One said, raising his hand at Klaus. "Your Identification, young man… To leave and enter Galen Town, you need to provide Identification regardless of if you were born in Galen."
"Ah Zachary, he's with me." Taula said.
However, Klaus had already summoned his ID from the pie-chart tattoo, and extended it to the guard.
Zachary read through it and handed it back.
"Open the gates, boys!" He shouted at the men at the top of the walls.
Immediately they pushed the levers on each side, and the gates creaked open enough for them to pass. "Taula, I guess you're heading to Yerefall Grove, right?"
Taula nodded.
"Well then, be safe out there and don't get lost again." He said, and they passed through the gates, exiting Galen Town. The gate closed shut behind them, and they looked back at the guards before continuing forward.
"Alright, Esteemed Customer…" Taula said as they kept walking out into the grasslands, taking several swerves. "For today, I'll be the one that'll guard you, so stay behind me."
"Sure." Klaus said.
If she could protect the both of them, then that would make him expend less mana and mental energy. "So where's the direction of Yerefall Grove?"
Taula stopped completely.
Klaus walked past her before stopping and looking at her face.
"Taula…?"
"Yes! Esteemed Customer!" She looked around frantically.
Klaus's face paled.
"Taula, are we lost?" Klaus asked, and the girl rubbed the back of her head shyly.
"It seems I mistook the path, Esteemed Customer. We're lost now." She admitted then she reached into her armor pocket. "But rest assured, I've mapped out the whole area just in case I got lost!"
Klaus's eye twitched.
"How many times have you gotten lost to map the whole area?" Klaus asked.
She blinked while tossing her head left and right.
"About 120 times, Esteemed Customer Klaus." She said before pulling out a crumpled paper. "Oh, so we aren't even lost but just a little bit away from the Grove!"
Klaus glanced at the "map" and winced. It was just a bunch of scribbles and jargon arranged to look like she was actually writing something.
'How does she even understand that?'
Then there was a low, threatening snarl from directly behind him and from a big bush, a Dire Wolf emerged immediately jumping at Klaus, closing the distance instantly with predatory speed.
He slowly turned around, and it seemed like the world had slowed down dramatically.
He could even see the Wolf's mouth wide-open with thick saliva dripping from its fangs and its eyes locked onto his throat.
'I'm going to die…?' The thought flashed through his mind.
However, the next instant, something cleaved through the Dire Wolf's head completely, splattering blood across Klaus's face and the ground as well.
Klaus blinked and turned to Taula, whose massive axe had cut deep into the ground in front of him and she drew the weapon back effortlessly.
"I forgot to mention…" She said casually while bending down to extract the monster core from the wolf's corpse with a smile. "Monsters crawl around in this place, so you need to keep your guard up."
She stood up and pocketed the core. "Like I said, it's my job to protect you in this place."
"Th…" He wanted to thank her but he got blood in his mouth and immediately cast a Cleanse spell on his face, the warm magic washing away the gore. "Thank you."
"No worries." She said, wiping her axe blade clean on the grass. "There are a lot more other monsters around, and I'd appreciate it if you paid attention instead of standing around."
"I was just caught off-guard." Klaus said defensively, and they began walking again. "I doubt it would happen again."
"Alright, Esteemed Customer…" She said.
"Can you stop with that 'Esteemed Customer' stuff? It makes me sound like a noble." He said with a sigh, the constant title was grating on his nerves. It was like being constantly reminded of something he lost. 'Fuck this fucking body…'
"Ah, you don't like it?" She raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised.
"Not that I don't like it, but it's weird." Klaus said with a sigh. "Just Klaus will be enough. We're both commoners after all."
"Klaus… Okay then." She said, testing out his name. "Klaus, I'm Taula."
"You said so yesterday." Klaus rolled his eyes. "And I called your name just a few minutes ago."
"I did? You did?" She blinked in confusion.
There were a few things Klaus could notice about the girl after spending time with her.
First of all, she was very forgetful. It might look like she was dumb at first glance, but it was more accurate to say that she was incredibly forgetful to an almost supernatural degree.
How did someone get to the point where you could map an entire surrounding area through 120 failed attempts and still get lost there?
Also, she was really strong… way stronger than her thin frame suggested so she didn't seem to be a Wizard but leaning more toward an Aura user, though he hadn't seen her use aura techniques yet so she was probably an initiate or …
'She must be naturally strong.' He thought, filing that away for later consideration.
And finally, she was extremely beautiful like, genuinely gorgeous. If he was one of those horny protagonists that reincarnated and immediately wanted to build a harem, he would have tried his chances already alas… He was a commoner.
'But then again, I'm more focused on how I'm going to survive in this world.' Klaus thought pragmatically.
Trouble was everywhere in this world.
Either it was from arrogant nobles trying to kill commoners for minor slights, or villains trying to resurrect ancient relics of the Old Age of Magic to take over the world, or even cults dedicating themselves to breaking the seal of an Archmage that had been imprisoned in the world's core… The whole story mode was a constant disaster parade.
'But I'm not the protagonist, so I don't have to worry too much about this.' Klaus thought. That was the only good thing about his current situation.
He was not going to interfere in the main plot and instead try to gather his strength quietly in the background while the protagonist dealt with world-ending threats.
They finally arrived at a place that had been completely fenced off with wooden posts and wire.
It was being guarded by two members of the city guard who were sitting around lazily with their weapons propped against a tree.
Klaus coughed violently at the sheer overwhelming smell of alcohol in the air.
'Are these people really meant to be guards?' Klaus thought with disgust. He'd hate it if he came to a place where he had paid people to protect it and they were openly drinking on duty.
"Klaus, meet the Drunk Twins." Taula said cheerfully while they stood in front of the guards. "Drunk Twins, meet Klaus. He's my customer."
The two guards perked up slightly and looked at Klaus with bleary unfocused eyes.
"Oi, whassis... new face 'round here, innit?" The first one slurred out, his words barely comprehensible through the drunken haze.
He squinted at Klaus like he was trying to determine if he was real or a hallucination.
"Yeh, yeh... he don' look too stronk neither, does 'e? Scrawny lil' thing..." The second one continued in equally incomprehensible gibberish, waving his bottle around for emphasis.
"Yeah yeah, he doesn't really seem that strong, but we're friends." Taula said, pulling Klaus to her side protectively. "So you can't be mean to him… Now can we pass?"
"Five silvahs, missy," one said while extending his hand with all the clarity of someone conducting a business transaction despite being completely plastered.
Taula reached into her light armor and began searching for her coin pouch. However, she didn't find it after several increasingly frantic pats of her pockets.
She turned to Klaus with an alarmed look on her face.
"Oh no… I forgot my money pouch at home." She said, looking genuinely distressed. "Hold on, let me head back and get it real quick!"
Klaus sighed heavily.
"Don't worry about it…"
If he let Taula go home to retrieve her pouch, then he would most certainly not see her again today. She would most probably get lost within five minutes and end up wandering the countryside for hours.
"How much are we paying for entry?"
"5 silvers." She said.
Klaus dropped 5 silver coins from his own pouch into the waiting hand of the first drunk guard, who pocketed them with surprising dexterity and opened the small gate for them to step inside.
Once they did, the gate shut behind them with a metallic clank, and Klaus looked back at the guards with lingering skepticism.
"I don't really feel good paying drunk men." He said honestly, watching as they both took long swigs from their bottles.
"Just watch them." Taula said, pointing ahead.
A Dire Wolf suddenly emerged from the bushes in front of the fence, snarling and charging directly toward the barrier with clear intent to break through however one of the guards got up, and then simply vanished.
Klaus blinked. The drunk man had disappeared entirely from his sitting position.
An instant later, the guard appeared directly in front of the charging Dire Wolf, moving so fast that a visible trail of white aura energy followed behind him like a comet's tail.
'Aura Practitioners?!' Klaus thought in shock.
The guard's sword flashed once in a horizontal arc that was directed through the air itself.
The Dire Wolf was cut cleanly in half and the slash continued through, even cleaving the bush behind it in half as well.
Both halves of the wolf and the severed vegetation fell to opposite sides.
The guard landed on the ground and immediately fell over sideways, burping loudly.
After the Aura Initiate stage where Klaus guessed Taula was currently at, there was the Aura Practitioner stage where aura techniques could be actively used and controlled.
The aura that the Practitioner wielded would become visible to the naked eye as a manifestation of their power.
"They become much stronger when they're actually drunk." Taula said matter-of-factly then she took hold of Klaus's hand without warning. "Anyway, let's head into the grove!"
Before Klaus could process what was happening, she suddenly threw him in the direction of the dungeon portal entrance, making his body sail through the air.
The swirling light of the portal consumed him entirely.
…
"Fuccckkkkk!" Klaus rolled to a stop on the grassy ground inside the dungeon, his body aching from the impact.
Taula stepped through the portal normally a moment later, looking at him with a worried face.
"Klaus, are you hurt?" She asked with genuine concern.
"The hell… you threw me in here and you're asking me if I'm hurt?" He gave her an incredulous look as he stood up, brushing grass off his armor.
"I didn't mean to!" She said, massaging her own hair nervously. "I just wanted to pat you on the back and give you encouragement, and then you got sent flying. I'm sorry."
"No worries." Klaus said, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
This was just another way for the world to tell him he was pathetically weak compared to Aura users. "So we're in the Yerefall Grove now. Where do we find the herbs?"
"I…" She fumbled again in her armor pocket, and Klaus had a sinking feeling that she had forgotten the information entirely but she managed to pull out a piece of paper. "Phew, I found it!"
"Let me see." Klaus was genuinely surprised about the fact that she had actually found something useful.
He looked at the map she had drawn and immediately averted his eyes. Like usual, it was complete incomprehensible rubbish with random lines and scribbles that vaguely resembled a child's drawing.
"So I've actually explored every corner of this place and I made a detailed map of it." She said proudly. "Though for these specific herbs, they're considered useless by most alchemists and located deep in the Grove, so let's go for the Azure Lotus Root first."
Klaus looked up and saw that the path ahead split into three distinct roads leading to different sections of the dungeon.
"Let's go to the left." Taula tucked the map back in her pocket and immediately took off running in the direction of the left path.
She ran ahead at full speed while Klaus was still running but falling far behind her with his inferior physical stats. When he finally caught up, he was gasping for air and his knees almost gave in from exhaustion.
"Now's not the time to be tired, Klaus." She said while brandishing her massive axe. "There are orcs in front of us."
"Orcs?" He looked up, still breathing heavily, and saw the massive green monsters.
They stood at least seven feet tall, heavily muscled, with only a few strategically placed leaves covering their waists and private areas. "The hell are orcs doing on private property?"
He had never really visited this location in the game since he didn't need herbs much in his playthroughs, but the dungeon description definitely didn't say anything about orcs being present in it.
"It is still a dungeon, it just has a different name and owner." She said pragmatically. "Now stand back and let me fight some orcs."
With that declaration, Taula took a single step forward.
The ground below Klaus trembled violently as she tore forward, leaving actual craters in the form of footprints on the ground where she ran. The raw physical power she was casually displaying was insane.
One of the orcs let out a battle cry upon seeing her charge.
"GRAAAAAHHH!!!" it roared, spittle flying from its tusked mouth.
It brought down its oversized wooden club at Taula with devastating force. The club was easily the size of Klaus's entire torso but she dodged it effortlessly, and the wind pressure from the massive weapon even hit Klaus where he was standing several meters away, making his hair whip back.
Taula bounced off the weapon itself like it was a springboard and swung her axe in a brutal arc.
The blade smashed right into the orc's thick neck, cutting the head off in an instant. The severed head flew through the air and landed with a wet thud.
'Well, as much as I'd like to be useless and just watch… I don't think I can.' Klaus thought, gritting his teeth.
Letting someone like Taula outshine him completely was preposterous. He had his pride as a mage.
"Magnetic Field." Klaus said, activating his spell. Mana drained from his core and he felt the familiar sensation of metal within his range coming under his control.
He summoned the four polished swords from his storage ring. They materialized in the air around him, hovering with deadly intent.
The next orc had already begun charging directly at Klaus, clearly viewing him as the easier target.
'So where are the weak spots of orcs again?' Klaus thought, going through his game knowledge mentally.
The orc was rapidly closing the distance with its heavy footfalls shaking the ground and its club raised high but Klaus wasn't particularly worried. In fact, he focused additional mana to coat the tips of his four swords, making them glow with magical energy.
"Right." He remembered the exact weak points from countless hours of gameplay and the four swords soared forward in coordinated strikes.
Two swords went directly for the orc's head, piercing through the skull from the temples and driving deep into the brain.
The other two swords shot low, piercing the monster directly in the crotch. The blades went completely through and came out the other side in sprays of blood.
The orc let out an absolutely agonized scream that echoed through the grove before collapsing to the ground with a thunderous crash and it created a crater as its massive body hit the earth.
Blood flowed out rapidly, creating an expanding pool around the corpse and mixed with the blood was some thick white fluid.
Klaus recalled his swords before the monster's body could land on them.
He looked at his weapons as they floated back to him.
Two had blood and chunks of brain matter coating them since they had gone to the brain while the other two had blood and white fluid as well. In fact, one of his swords was holding what looked like a pink ball of flesh speared on the blade, oozing fluid.
Klaus stared at it.
"Is that…" He blinked several times. "A testicle?"