Month: July 2020 (Page 1 of 2)

The train stops.

Francis, Delta and I are in position for a battle.

But… nothing comes.

In my experience, it is very concerning when nothing comes after an event like this. It means whatever threat may be out there… Is not charging forward with the brashness of a crazed animal. The threat is aware of how to conduct an attack, of how

Francis glances out at the window, to the Pacific Ocean, and loses his composure. (Not that his fighting stance was particularly steady anyway.) “Uh, dudes…”

“Dude… I never figured out what that word means,” I say. “But please enlighten me.”

He ignores my question for reasons I do not understand. “Look out the window,” he says. “It’s… uh, well…”

Delta and I look.

It’s…

Uh…

Are those pirate ships?

They are small boats of some sort, resting off the coast while men armed with rifles and scabbards hold the perimeter. It is like a makeshift army, if I do say so myself.

Then into our train car marches several other men and women of this same group. They immediately begin banging on the walls and shouting.

“Get out your valuables, everyone!” the seeming leader, a woman with an eyepatch, says. Almost clinically, the other passengers on the train begin digging out their purses and wallets and ruffling through for watches and wads of cash.

We look at the loot bag that is sitting on the seat behind us. The one that has the extremely valuable gold and other items (including a mana-infused goblin club, something much more precious in my opinion). The one that these mysterious pirates will most certainly want to take a look at.

“Shit!” I mutter. Wow, I’ve only been on Earth for about a week, but I am finally adapting my own language to Earth’s interesting terms and phrases.

Quickly, I dash back to the seat and poof the entire bag in my inventory. Unfortunately, that did not quite capture the items restin at the top of the bag, and the Orb of Ulric the Plainsmith, as well as a few stacks of playing cards, come falling to the ground. The orb hits the floor with a glassy thud and rolls far down the train car until it bumps right into the foot of one of these gun-toting men.

He looks right at me. He points to us.

“We got a few high rollers here, I can see,” the eyepatch wearing woman says. “What you got that we can’t have?”

“Um, nothing?” I try to be as convincingly naive as I can. Normally it is one of my greater skills. Here, though… they don’t seem to buy it for a second.

The man sticks his rifle into my stomach. “Yeah? You really got nothing to pay? No tribute to the king?” he asks. “Captain, what do we do with boys with no tax?”

“Well, we can’t just let him pass like that,” the woman, the captain, says. “It’d be highly unfitting. We might as well kill him.”

Just at this moment, Francis lets out a loud groan and then steps in front of me. He pushes the rifle out of the way and says to them, “Sorry about my friend here. He’s new to California. Here, take my—” he rummages through his pocket. “Phone?” His eyes open wide in horror as he realizes his precious device is now on the proverbial chopping block.

The captain takes it. Then she examines us closely and her single eye opens wide as well. “Wait a minute… You three are the Heroes of Paso Robles, aren’t you?”

“….Huh?”

“We heard all about it over the news wire,” she says. “A valiant rebellion against the aristocratic power of the wealthy landowners. Bruh, that’s sick. Pink hair here’s been commemorated as the Destiny Duelist, I hear.”

“The Destiny Duelist…”

“So yeah, don’t worry about us,” she says. “We’re just here to collect entry taxes for King Bodhi. We don’t need it from bonafide heroes.”

“Entry taxes… Wait, what is this place?” I ask. “I would very much like to know.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” says Delta.

“Well, you three have a good day,” says the captain. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Santa Barbara.”

Francis blinks a few times. “But we weren’t… Oh, no…”

The pirates move along, collecting more items from different passengers and putting them in bags.

Soon, the train moves again, but much more slowly, as it is being guided by the pirates themselves. We stop at Santa Barbara station, and are all forced off. The train is then commandeered by the pirates and taken to a facility somewhere off to do The Goddess know what.

“They take about three trains a week these days,” Delta says. “We just got unlucky.”

It’s nice to hear that word has spread of my heroism. But these pirates here? Our sudden diversion into a city I know nothing about? These things worry me… and excite me as well. Our next stage of adventure begins.

I’m still rummaging through my loot bag and examining its contents when I feel a tap at my shoulder. One thin pricking feeling against the fabric of my shirt.

I drop the Fangs of Surtur back into the bag and look behind me.

It’s Delta, who has just come back from the bathroom or something like that.

She looks… tired.

It makes sense; we’ve been through a lot these past few days, whether that be fighting the Persian Mob, fighting a cult, or even watching Chasing Amy. And the sleep we’ve gotten has been rough at best.

But this level of tired is still something I have never seen in Delta before. I have known her about one week now, and we have had almost constant contact since then, so I feel that I know her more deeply than most. And the look on her face is most certainly something that gives me pause.

“You,” she says quietly.

“Me?”

“You need to tell me about…” she looks to my side and sees Francis, who is busy playing and streaming Royals of Foreign Lands Mobile (Early Access) on his phone. His headphones are in, so he hasn’t even thought to glance in our direction. “About the thing.”

“About the gold? I know, you and Francis made sure I understood why you were so astounded. It sure does sound like a lot of money!”

“Not that thing.”

“Then what thing?”

“You know… THAT thing.”

“Uh…”

“The baby thing.”

“Baby thing?” I ask. “Wait, oh, you mean from when we were being kidnapped. Yes, that baby! Your baby.”

We both eye Francis again and decide to take our conversation elsewhere in the train car, away from prying ears (not that Francis is nearly deviant enough to have actually been eavesdropping on us). Time to go to a much safer place… that little tiny space that links the train cars where you are supposed to board or disembark. It will be an annoying place once we reach the next stop, but for now it is serviceable enough.

As soon as we are in place here, Delta’s composure falls apart, much like a broken mirror would after being improperly glued back together. A new sense of vulnerability washes over her entire being. Completely unlike I’ve ever seen it before.

“Eryk, tell me it was a joke. Tell me it was some giant lie and you’ve gained the ability to fool people,” she says, her tone growing increasingly soft and anxious. She reaches out to me and puts both hands on my shoulders, as if she needs to lean on me for support.

“What is going on with you, Delta?” I ask. “You seem so serious all of a sudden.”

“The baby. Tell me about the baby.”

“Oh, well… I thought you would be angry if you ever knew that I learned about it,” I say. “I didn’t mean to find out. It was an accident, I swear.”

“Acc—what the hell are you talking about?”

“Yesterday, when we were still in the hot springs, I used my [Skill Check] skill to figure out the best way for us to leave the bath without Pablo Rosas catching us. And so I saw the stats that make up all of life on Earth… including the stats of the being growing inside of you.”

Delta’s shaking. “Inside of… Eryk, you are one hundred percent certain about this?”

“Of course. I would never jest about something like this. I apologize for not telling you sooner, but I figured you would want to keep this a secret, and you would be embarrassed that I learned of it using my Destiny Card skills.”

“Eryk, did you know that I’m married to a woman?” Delta asks, tightening her grip on my shoulders. “Did you know that I, too, am a woman?”

“And?”

“Lesbians don’t just get pregnant out of nowhere!” she shouts in a whisper. A whispering shout… A very rare occurrence.

“But Francis told me about same sex reproduction and the methods in which to induce it,” I explain. “I simply figured that—”

“That is all VOLUNTARY. You can’t accidentally get an IVF!”

“A mystery pregnancy… You are with child, but I am the one who delivered the news to you… Oh, my, I’m so sorry.”

Delta begins to cry. “I don’t understand… I was going to get pregnant after the trip. How could this happen now? Who did this to me? How long have I been pregnant?”

I take her arms off my shoulders and give her a warm, hugging embrace. I pat the back of her head and say, “This is an impossible mystery, which means it is one we will solve together.”

“A mystery, huh… I fucking hate mysteries…”

“And I love them,” I say. “That’s why we will make a good team.”

“I’m going to have a baby. I didn’t even miss my period yet. How can I be ready for this?” Delta sighs and then lets go from me. She wipes the tears from her eyes. “Well, I guess that’ll be fun in seven or eight months. Julie is going to flip the hell out. I should probably tell her now, but…”

“Should we turn back and go home to San Fransisco?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Not yet. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out myself.”

“Understood. I shall support you in any way I can.”

“You already have,” she says. “You’ve helped me a lot here. Just… Wow. Your powers accidentally had relevance for once.”

“I will take that as a very high compliment,” I say.

So Delta has absolutely no idea why she is currently growing a living being inside of her. Defying all logic, only the illogical can possibly be an answer. I heavily suspect dimensional tampering to be at fault, but I refrain from making the suggestion now. I have dealt with pregnant women in my past, and I know how to deal with them in sensitive and understanding ways. I will be as supportive as I can be.

We finally go back to our seats on the train (Francis hasn’t moved whatsoever) and get on with our lives. Well, almost.

Delta shakes her head one last time and mutters, “In a year I’m going to be changing diapers and making baby food. I just can’t believe it…”

“It’s not incredibly difficult if you practice enough,” I say. “I know with my firstborn, it was damn near impossible, but by the third, I was caring for them without even thinking about it.”

Delta stares at me again. “What did you just say? Your what?”

Suddenly, the entire train car begins rattling. All three of us jump up into combat mode.

The train comes to a screeching halt and all of the luggage (and half the people) in the car are flung into the air, tumbling down from above or off of seats.

Somehow, I don’t think that this was entirely benign.

We ready ourselves for whatever battle is to come.

Francis is finally awake. It sure has been long enough.

Delta has come back as well, though she seems to be brooding about something or another. I am not entirely sure what.

“I have something important to announce to you two friends of mine,” I say.

The looks they give me are glazed-over, to say the least. Neither one actually says anything to me.

“Well, the truth is,” I begin, “I leveled up this morning while you two were gone. I am now level 19.”

Delta shrugs. “Okay, cool.”

But Francis’s eyes light up. He quickly munches down a bagel, and all his normal energy that is typically sapped away by the black hole of being sleepy returns in a flash. “That’s amazing!” he exclaims. “That means you’re only one level away from reaching C-Rank, doesn’t it?”

“Well, technically, I will be given the option to rank up if I so choose, but since doing so will increase the curve for level ups and will make it more difficult for me to gain in stats, I may want to stay as a D-Rank [Adventurer] for the—”

“No way,” Francis interrupts. “Your goal is to reach S-Rank so you can be the first big hero in a million years or whatever, and stats aren’t part of that. Destiny Points are the only thing you need to worry about.”

“So I should ignore one of the fundamental aspects of the entire Destiny Deck System?”

“Optimally, yes,” he says, launching into full-on gamer lecture mode by this point. “Even the Destiny Cards you can draw are a detriment to your overall progress. If you want to be efficient and game the system to victory, you gotta be willing to sacrifice some of the little conveniences.”

“Wow, I… never really thought of it that way,” I respond.

“That’s because you’re not a pro gamer yet,” he says. “Trust me. Six hundred hours into Royals of Foreign Lands and you’ll start to look at game systems very differently. It’s all about the build. The min-max.”

The min-max…

That seems like a very important and official term. I should write that down somewhere.

The train that we are riding on goes over a bump of some sort.

We rattle for a moment, and I grip the seat as if something terrible is about to happen. But nothing does; it’s just a momentary passing issue.

It does remind me, though, that there is another issue that is certainly not momentary or passing that is of vital importance:

“You two must recall the fighting last night, where my inebriated clone began throwing random items out of a large bag.”

Francis and Delta give me another strange look.

“Uh…” Francis puts his finger to his bottom lip.

Delta shrugs. “A lot of stuff happened last night. It’s hard to remember.”

“Well, perhaps that ruins the build-up, then, but I wanted to remind you that I have… THIS!”

I poof out of my inventory a very special item: A large rucksack filled to the brim with assorted items.

“This is a loot bag from Mystix,” I say. “My clone discarded several items that could have been of good use, but it is still quite filled and extremely heavy. I’ve been meaning to show this loot bag for several days now, but it seems now is the most appropriate time, since we are in need of replacements for what we lost in Paso Robles.”

After I say that, the realization once again hits all three of us that we left behind almost the entirety of our belongings back in that hotel.

“Such a bummer…” Francis mutters.

“But have no fear! The loot bag will more than make up for it.”

“What’s in there?” Delta asks. “Anything ridiculous?”

“Well, the fun part is that I actually don’t know,” I say. “The bag contains assorted items from many travels with my Adventurer’s Guild group, Team Fanghook. We tried to sell many items at each town, but for, everything left over, we kept it in this bag for safekeeping.”

“So it’s just random assorted junk…”

“But it could be interesting junk! Let’s dig in any see what’s going on here…”

I reach into the bag, rummaging around the various items contained within. I feel hard metals, I feel soft organic materials, and most of all, I feel…

“Strider chitin!” I shout as I pull out a stack of sheets of thick, rough insectoid skin.

Several of the other passengers in the train car turn to me and give me suspicious glances. I should most likely refrain from yelling when I pull things out from now on. (Though I am a master of pulling out, that is for sure.)

“Is that… giant bug skin?” Delta shudders as she asks this.

“Yes. Striders are large insect creatures with psychic powers and super speed. They are very dangerous and almost impossible to kill. So their skin is very, very popular for clothing, armor, and snack foods.”

“Sn…” Delta declines to even question such a question as this. Do they not eat insects on Earth? I didn’t even think about that until just now. Huh, what a peculiar world this is.

“It may fetch a pretty penny for those who wish to weave it into armor, I think,” I say.

Now for my next item…

…A goblin eye!

This time, Delta shrieks.

“It’s the eye of a slain goblin,” I explain. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Why in God’s name do you have that?!” she whispers loudly, failing to keep her voice down. Passengers are now actively staring at us.

“These are said to have strong medicinal properties. I’m not quite sure myself.”

“It could be really cool to analyze the DNA,” Francis says.

“I have no idea what that means, but it sounds interesting.,” I say.

Okay, another item…

…A minature one-handed bow.

“Oh, wow, I could have used this all along,” I say. “This is a bow specially designed for just one-handed use. All this time, I’ve been having to use my special techniques, but I could have just loaded the arrows onto this machine and blasted away.”

“I think they call this a crossbow,” Francis says, “but crossbows are way lamer than your cool bow attack. Never stop that.”

“Aw, thanks.”

After that is…

…A gold bar.

“Oh, this may be useful,” I say. “It’s a gold ingot that has been smelted into a bar form. It can be traded on Mystix for the equivalent of one thousand gold coins, or melted down and turned into powerful weaponry. I don’t know if it is of any use on Earth, but—You two, why are you looking at me like that?”

Their jaws have dropped so far I’m worried that they are suffering a simultaneous mental breakdown. It honestly worries me more than a little bit to see them like this. Are they okay?

“I-I-I…Eryk…” Francis fails to speak a complete thought.

Delta is too stunned to even let a word out.

“I guess gold isn’t the most popular item here on Earth. Well then, that might be a bad thing, because…” I rummage through the loot bag and pull out more items. “…there’s two more where that came from. About six and a half pounds in total, if my weight judgment is accurate.”

Francis outright faints.

“Please put those away before anyone sees,” Delta whispers with a biting tone.

“Uh, okay…”

I promptly comply.

Wow, these people really must hate gold…

I continue my presentation, showing the two of them such interesting items as an artifact from the Yuletide Town Ruins, a Pterosaur quill, and a discarded mage’s tunic (Borguk had been gaining interest in fashion before we, um, parted ways). But no matter what I show them, nothing seems to make them any less tensed up than they were when I first showed the gold.

What the hells is up with that?

Empathetic Link: Rank 7. Create a mental link with a target sentient being. Cost: 5500 LP.

…

What in blue blazes is this?

[Empathetic Link] is already a Rank 7 card, and clearly one of the most powerful that I have ever drawn. But this card… How is it even when I am a D-Rank [Adventurer,] somehow I can draw something this rare and powerful?

In fact, I have an extremely hard time accepting that a card like [Empathetic Link] could even have apppeared in my Destiny Deck to begin with. This card does not thematically fit with [Adventurer] at all. It doesn’t feel like some sort of general card that just happens to be in the Destiny Decks of all people who are powerful enough and lucky enough to receive it. It feels like a specialized card from some specific class, like, say, [Mage,] or perhaps [Supreme,] or maybe even [Lordess.]

But I have it now.

I… don’t know how to feel about this at all.

I do love that I have it, though. The description here is so vague that I’d need to test it out a little bit before getting a feel for it—which is impossible when it is so rare and costs over a third of my total Life Points pool—but I am willing to risk grave consequences in order to see what kinds of cool stuff it can do.

Well, that’s enough for now, since I won’t have an opportunity to use that anytime in the near future.

Now it is time… to level up!

Wait, actually, no.

First, I should do a quick overview of my Achivements Board, maybe see if there’s anything worth mentioning…

…Oh!

Level up for the first time.✓	Join the Adventuer’s Guild.✓	Draw a Rank 8 card.				Eat a food with a Quality Rating of at least 850.
Obtain your first map.✓	Duel another System user.	Sleep at 10 inns.✓	Customize your HUD.		Pray to The Goddess every day for a week.(Progress: 0/7)	Gain 10 DP in one day.✓	Unlock and use the Costume Changer.
Complete the tutorial softwae.✓	Travel over 100,000 miles.(Progress: 65%)	Sleep at 125 inns.(Progress: 44%)		Defeat a member of royalty in battle.	Kill your first monster.✓	Fight a B Rank opponent.
Defeat the boss of an Apex Lair.	Uncover buried treasure.	Adjust the System Personality settings.✓	Use the Wedding function and marry another System user.	Become drunk to the point of passing out. Keep going.	Draw a Rank 5 card.✓	Frighten a goblin away from its gold.	Perform a stunt so impressive that a bystander shouts “Superb!”	Slay a Skeleton Army General.	Kill an unarmed opponent.
Kiss someone while underneath a waterfall.	Reach E Rank.✓	Access your Sorting Scepter to assess your options.			Reach the Top 16 of the Grand Tournament.	Sail over 10,000 miles. (Progress: 92%)	Soak at 15 hot springs.✓	Rescue a damsel in distress.✓	Recite the Great Commandments of the Adventurers 5 times.
	Reach C Rank.						Defeat a [Toxin.]	Make love under the twilight moon.✓
								Obtain six Inventory Slot cards.
							Perform a triple jump.	Discover a new location for the first time.✓	Figure out a terrifying secret.
				Obtain a Dragon skull.				Defeat 100 enemies in a single day.
			Draw 1000 cards.(Progress: 65%)	Draw 100 cards.✓	Draw 10,000 cards.(Progress: 6.5%)

Wow! I completed the achievement:

Rescue a damsel in distress.

That means that, sometime in the last day, I was responsible for rescuing a damsel from a perilous fate.

That can only mean…

Delta. My saving Delta from the hands of Karen and her cult was what helped me achieve this new goal.

Or Francis, maybe. He could be a damsel, in a certain way.

Or myself. Is saving myself tantamount to saving a damsel? Am I a damsel?

Either way, let me claim the reward for this achievement:

Ding!

[+3 DP.]

[63 DP.]

Amazing! Stupendous!

And now time to level up for the first time in several days… Here we come, Level 19!

…

I use 25 Destiny Points. They drain out of me and surround my spirit like a sparkling aura.

[-25 DP.]

Kabam!

I start to twinkle more brightly than even the fiery eyes of the cultists that tried to force me to become a Paso Robles follower.

And then…

Level-Up!

[Full Heal!]

[15,000/15,000 LP.]

I am now a Level 18 [Adventurer,] at D-Rank. And let’s see what stat bonuses I’ve gained:

Strength	27 (+7)
Speed	6 (+1)
Agility	6
Wisdom	6 (+1)
Defense	12
Charm	20 (-1)
Viscosity	3 (+1)
Deftness	16
Charisma	6
Manners	30 (+12)
Power	52 (+3)
Sturdiness	0

Hmmm… Wow!

My [Strength] and [Power] stats have both seen a major boost. I’m stronger than ever, and ready more than ever to face whatever opponents may wish to strike me down.

I also received a massive increase in my [Manners] stat, thanks presumably to my better understanding of Earth culture.

I am disappointed that my [Charm] stat went down, but sometimes that does happen. I just hope that it does not continue to do so, because my [Charm] is one of my healthiest and most helpful aspects.

Still, I am just one level away from being eligible to rank up, and that excites me a lot. I would do it right now, except that I want to do it in a more dramatic place and time. Francis isn’t even awake, and Delta is off somewhere else doing something I am currently unaware of, so the dramatic element is completely gone.

Instead, I wll focus my efforts on one more area that I have been neglecting for a very long time…

…

…

Breakfast.

I find the breakfast bar a few train cars down and grab myself some cold foods. Cereals, bagels, iced coffee, and a tiny pack of something called raisins.

I’m not sure what a lot of the foods I am taking actually are, but they are delicious. I get extra food for Francis when he wakes up (that is just what good friends do for one another), and now my hands are completely full carrying all of these items.

It’s been a tiring hour or so, sorting through all my stats and cards and achievements. But now I can enjoy the finer side of life: looking out the window to see the California seaside, eating a breakfast, and enjoying the quiet atmosphere of an Amtrak train.

Ahh… It’s very nice.

Very… simple, even.

It reminds me of the times when I wanted to run off with Malia, back when I was still younger and fresher in my life as an [Adventurer.] A life with no ambition towards a final goal, no progression to fantasize about, no constant churn of Life Points… It could have been a good life had I run into Malia, the love of my life, outside of the context of the constant peril and combat and stressful management situations that comes with being in the Destiny Deck System on Mystix.

Here on Earth? It’s almost too good to be true.

Ding!

[+3 DP.]

From breakfast and from our brief stop at a beautiful resort town station, I receive a total of three Destiny Points, bringing my total up to 41 DP.

I love Earth.

It’s just too bad that this peacefulness surely will not last.

I’m… I’m awake?

What the…

What?!

With Francis resting on my shoulder and my head resting atop his, I find myself back on the Amtrak train headed towards the fabled mystical city of Los Angeles.

But just seconds ago, I was on Mystix still. I was with Rare, my long-lost sibling who had not yet to even begin explaining what had happened to them and how they gained such immense magical powers. I was with Miss M and Malia, the last surviving members of Team Fanghook after nearly one hundred years had passed since I died.

We were about to enter the Tomb of Eryk Solbourne, and…

And…

Now I’m awake all of a sudden.

Back on Earth.

This is some pretty disconcerting stuff. I don’t recall any specific moment waking up. Nothing dramatic happening to propel me away from Mystix and making my ghostly figure dissipate.

I was just in the catacombs, and now I am here again.

For a normal dream, this would be completely understandable, even typical. But when I have such dramatic stakes such as the fate of my own existence, it throws me off completely and makes me extremely upset.

Just…

I genuinely hate this.

Why must I be catapulted between worlds in such a haphazard and annoying fashion? It is a constant and distressing situation that I am growing to despise.

I need a drink.

For the fact that it is currently the middle of the morning, by my understanding of the way the Earth’s sun rises and sets, I probably should not be drinking any alcohol at this time of day. What a sorrowful life I must live until then.

…

…

What Rare said…

They told me that Earth was fake. That it was my imagination. Some sort of illusion created by The Goddess to fool me into staying trapped without my full power. I don’t understand what they were trying to say, but it makes no sense. Why in The Goddess’s name would I—Oh, perhaps it is not appropriate to use The Goddess’s name in vain in a situation like this. Let me try again.

Why in the world would I conjure up with my own thoughts a world where I fight almost nothing, where such things as video games and snack foods exist, where I am joined by a woman-loving woman who has no interest in me, and by an energetic man who lives his life as a stramer? I simply cannot fathom how any of this could be fake or fiction.

My mind is unsettled, and I decide not to think on these things anymore, especially since there is nothing I can do about it until the next time I dream.

Instead… perhaps I should think about my status as a hero. Specifically, my Destiny Deck System and all of those things I have been neglecting for some time.

First, let’s look at my Life Points:

[5866/15,000 LP.]

Oh, wow, that’s getting pretty low. I could coast for approximately a day and a half before that gets dangerously low, but I do know that I have quite a lot of Destiny Points at the moment—57 DP, to be quite exact. Now may be the right time to level up.

But do I really need a full heal just yet? It almost feels like a waste when a level up would only award me something around nine thousand Life Points.

I know what this calls for… Destiny Card drawing! Yeah! I love drawing Destiny Cards so much!

Let’s look at my hand right now:

Inventory Slot: Rank 4. Store an item here to retrieve for future use. Current item: Satchel (Size: Extra Large).

Inventory Slot: Rank 4. Store an item here to retrieve for future use. Current item: (Empty)

Inventory Slot: Rank 4. Store an item here to retrieve for future use. Current item: Bow and arrow.

Transmigrated Spirit: Rank 3. Summon an otherworldly spirit to assist for five minutes. Cost: 444 LP.

Hmmmm…

Three empty slots. That’s not a lot to work with if I get in a dicey situation, such as being ambushed during this very train trip. Just a few days ago, those South African Secret Service people did that exact thing, so I mustn’t be too careful. [Transmigrated Spirit] is a powerful card worth saving, but it is also far too unpredictable to be the only card I can actively use.

And furthermore, my second inventory slot is empty! I lost my gun in the fight with Pablo Rosas, whose olive oil diet turned him into a speedy fighting machine. Such a powerful weapon, and it fell out of my grasp almost immediately. What a horrible situation…

Well, anyway, I guess I very much should be summoning some new Destiny Cards. And while I have plenty of Destiny Points to do that with, I still want to save those so I can level up anytime I need. I’m so close to Rank C at this point that I am honestly a fool for not blowing all my Destiny Points in a mad rush to reach that point.

Continuing to be a mad fool, I decide to draw three cards with my Life Points—

Agh—

[-670 LP.]

[-1480 LP.]

[-737 LP.]

Well, there goes my life spirit.

[2979/15,000 LP.]

Drop: Rank 1. Make someone fall over. Cost: 80 LP.

Parch: Rank 2. Drain someone/thing of fluid and absorb it to become less thirsty. (It would take a few minutes of sustained parching to suck all fluid from a human and kill them, in case you were wondering.) Cost: 350 LP.

Geochange: Rank 2. Change the matter type of one 10-foot cube of land.

Oh, these are… Some pretty odd cards.

[Drop] is one of those nearly useless basic cards that do little but suck up your inventory space and prove amusing in some hilarious situation down the line. It is only nominally more useful than [Fireball,] and that’s the most important and common card that a low-rank [Adventurer] can receive.

[Parch] is… Well, it’s pretty obvious what [Parch] is. And it’s not very useful in any situation outside of deserts and covert assassinations, neither of which I have any plans to be in in the near future.

So actually, I’m scrapping that one right now. Goodbye,[Parch.] Now to say hello to half of your DP cost, rounded down to the nearest whole number. Wait, that’s still 1.

[+1 DP.]

[58 DP.]

Time to sacrifice my Life Points for yet another card, then….

Ouch!

[-887 DP.]

[2090/15,000 LP.]

Major Heal: Rank 4. Gain 3,000 LP. Cost: 0 LP.

You know what…

I really dislike that is is the card I received.

Sure, getting three thousand more Life Points would allow me to spend even more on new cards and that would be fun, but it would basically compel me to scrap more of these cards I have received in order to make good use of the extra points I received.

Therefore, my path is actually…

Just scrapping this card as well.

Goodbye, [Major Heal.]

[+2 DP.]

[60 DP.]

Now time to draw yet one more card with my Life Points!

[-501 LP.]

[1588/15,000 LP.]

Here it… is……?

Empathetic Link: Rank 7. Create a Mental Link with a target sentient being. Cost: 5500 LP.

…

What in blue blazes is this?