Fortunately for Grayson’s sanity, Fera took being invited to the capital of the empire with her usual excitement. He’d been worried that dragging her half way across the continent would upset her. A check in with Mertaba after talking to her confirmed that they could spend a couple of days here or there on their trip.

  “There’s no rush. Your trip will be a few weeks and the urgent reports have already been sent. This is more a ‘how many and where’ type of report and that can wait.”

  It also provided Grayson with a month’s salary along with the bounty for his last group of bandits. Much less than the first set, given there were seven instead of one hundred, but welcome nonetheless. He bid Grayson farewell and left him to his preparations.

  So Grayson and Fera had spent a day talking to everyone they knew locally, updating them on their latest adventure and telling them their next steps. Madam Gheris was particularly emotional, loudly decrying the couple as going on a well deserved honeymoon and tearfully pressing a parcel of food on them, grinning and winking as she leaned in to kiss each of them on the cheek. Grayson and Fera laughed along with the other patrons, several of whom also faked crying to see the pair leave. They’d visited Madam Gheris a few times over the last few weeks and gotten to know some of the patrons quite well.

  Then they did laundry and packed their few changes of clothes back up in preparation for their next journey. They wanted to get an early start to land in a town approximately ten leagues away before nightfall with a chance to let Mink rest and eat lunch along the way. This would be their primary travel plan with some allowance for them to explore a little and sightsee on the way.

  It was just over two hundred and twenty leagues from Gravistone to Mayfair, meaning that with a goal of ten leagues per day they would take three weeks to arrive. Adding in the alps, which would have to be navigated on foot which would take almost a week on its own, or going around them, which would add two weeks and their initial estimate was four weeks. They could extend it to six weeks travelling if they needed to, but both of them had a sense of duty that would probably keep it to five. Their plan formed, they went to sleep, ready to leave early the next day.

  Early the next day Fera was raring to go, pulling Grayson out of bed before dawn. Grayson cheerfully followed her down to the kitchens, carrying their saddlebags and watched from the door as she begged, borrowed, and stole a few days worth of food from a bemused cook who was taking his first batch of loaves from a large bread oven. Deftly swiping an extra handful of carrots and onions while the man’s back was turned, Fera left the kitchen at a run, dashing past Grayson who jogged to keep up with his laughing wife.

  They flew for five hours before stopping for lunch. A league an hour was a slow pace for a pegasus, but one it could keep up for a few days flight at ten hours per day without undue strain. There was no reason to hurt Mink on this trip, so they let him take it easy. They stopped on a nice hill overlooking a picturesque valley. They had plenty of food on them, so had decided not to enter the town for lunch and eat with a lovely view. They sat together for an hour before deciding to get a move on.

  The town they planned to rest in was very welcoming. They were still close enough to the border that any Muric bandits in the area had been captured or otherwise impeded and other forms of banditry were considered incredibly unwise. Another Crusader of Perimis slept in the church that night, taking another one of the guest rooms. Grayson gave him the latest information from Gravistone and the Crusader warned him of a large beast that had been spotted in a shallow valley to the southeast.

  Kill unknown beast: 0/1

  Thanks Queuecy.

  Reward: 50xp

  XP?

  Experience points.

  No shit, I know what they are. What do you mean I get XP?

  Well, you don’t, but if I’m gonna be your quest system, I may as well give you arbitrary rewards so you can get a free dopamine hit every level.

  Levels, Queuecy? Really?

  Yup. Guess what level you are.

  Either one or around six hundred with endgame spells.

  Nope. Try again!

  Six?

  Twelve!

  Why am I level twelve as opposed to anything else?

  Remember all those bandits you killed?

  Yes, but that was before you became you. They shouldn’t count.

  Do you want to be level two?

  Why two?

  The rats.

  Fuck it, why not. Level two. Why don’t you build me a character sheet while you’re at it. And what are my active quests?

  Main Quest: Deliver reports to Mayfair

  Side Quest: Slay the terror of the valley 0/1

  Upgrade Quest: Eat magic mana stones 0/30

  Thanks.

  Character sheet will come later when I decide what your stats are gonna be. I gotta base them against something.

  Are they even going to change at this point?

  Given how much common sense applies to us, probably?

  Fair.

  They headed out the next morning and headed southeast to find the beast the other Crusader mentioned. It would be a small detour, but wouldn’t add more than an hour to the planned journey. Grayson left Mink and Fera together on the edge of the valley while he went in to hunt it down. It was several kilometers from where they touched down, but Grayson could see it’s magic signature, blazing unnaturally brightly. Grayson decided not to mention to Fera how concerned he was starting to get about the steadily increasing sensitivity.

  Grayson jogged into the valley, ducking under branches and jumping over logs. It was moderately forested, which made it harder for other people to find the amorphous magical blob somewhere in the distance. Having the magical equivalent of thermal vision let Grayson reach the thing in less than half an hour. That was when he got to see his quarry clearly.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  It was not an amorphous magical blob. It was about ten feet tall, spined, with large claws and lots of legs. Grayson had no idea what this thing was supposed to be called. He settled on Kevin. It kinda looked like a Kevin.

  Kevin noticed him and turned, drooling pure dirt from its mandibles. Grayson considered this a very bad sign. This feeling was confirmed when Kevin sprayed rocks from its mouth like a giant minigun. Grayson created a shield out of magic mana, deflecting most of the force from the rocks and tapped his chin. Perhaps it was a Keith. Definitely something with a K.

  Rocks proving ineffective, Keith drove itself in to the ground and started tunneling. Grayson watched it for a second before it was too deep for the magic to penetrate the dirt. Grayson walked over to the hole and looked down it, hoping to draw the creature out. The ground vibrating warned him a second before the creature burst through the ground where he’d been standing a moment before.

  Grayson had taken two steps to the side, then done a small hop to get some extra distance while Keith burst up from the ground, looking around in confusion. Grayson looked a little closer. He realized he’d been assuming possibly not Keith’s sex as male. Unfortunately, Grayson had absolutely no way to determine the sex of whatever the fuck Keith was.

  He stepped in, drawing his sword and coating it in darkness before sweeping it through Keith’s neck. Grayson stepped back, looking at his sword, then looking back up at Keith. Keith, much to Grayson’s surprise, looked straight back at him. Keith’s eyes seemed to narrow. Keith was pissed.

  Grayson leaned to the right, dodging a swipe from one of Keith’s claws. Keith was extremely slow compared to Grayson, so Grayson wasn’t in any particular danger. Grayson stuck his darkness covered sword into Keith and wiggled it around. It moved like Keith wasn’t even there. Keith also didn’t appear to be in any particular danger.

  “Well, I suppose this is only fair,” said Grayson, leaning away from another furious swipe before sidestepping a spiny appendage. Keith didn’t say anything, but a stomp from one of its legs saw a large rock stab up from the ground behind Grayson.

  Grayson caught the rock with his bare hand. It cracked and broke around his palm and fingers, sending shards and splinters flying through the air past him. Grayson frowned, then looked at his darkness covered sword. He poked it into the ground, then took a step forwards to avoid a second rock spike. The sword moved with him… like the ground wasn’t there. It didn’t even leave a furrow.

  Grayson was deep in thought as he examined his darkness covered blade. He’d wanted to bypass whatever armor Keith had in its very rocky exterior. He sidestepped another swipe, holding up his blade to let Keith’s claws slide straight through it. He watched closely, then looked extremely closely at his blade. As he waved it around, he saw something he absolutely hadn’t expected to see. A star.

  Grayson figured this method of testing had gone just about as far as it could go. Instead of doing what was probably the smart thing, Grayson decided to employ the scientific method. Employing the scientific method to determine what the hell is happening with your sword while an indefinable Keith is trying to disembowel you is not the smart thing. Grayson stabbed himself in the foot.

  Okay, the sword was definitely doing something. Grayson hopped to the side, narrowly avoiding another sweeping strike and kicking his foot to get the very odd feeling out of it. As soon as he’d removed the sword, his foot had gone back to normal, but psychosomatic feelings are weird. Also not something you want to deal with while you’re supposed to be dodging a large rock.

  Grayson managed to dodge the large rock by bending down to pick up a small rock. He dropped it into the sword. It disappeared. Grayson looked at the sword again, then picked up another rock and slowly pushed it into the sword. It disappeared as well. Grayson bowed quickly to avoid another rock spike from behind. The sword swung down and one of the rocks popped out of it. Grayson looked up sharply, hitting his head on the rock spike, but still managing to catch the rock. It was the second rock he’d put in.

  My sword is a portal to space

  How the fuck did you manage that?

  Why isn’t the atmosphere getting sucked in?

  Why aren’t you killing this thing that is clearly a Kyle before you try and figure out the rules of sword portals?

  I don’t want to dismiss the sword portal to use some other kind of sword enchantment to kill it.

  Kill it with fire then.

  But it’s clearly a rock monster. That would probably make it a lava monster with how magical it is.

  Kill it with lasers then. If you don’t, I will.

  Fine.

  Grayson dodged around another rock and extended his left arm, blasting a beam of light out of it. The beast’s rocky scales deflected for just long enough for it to bring a dome of rock around itself. Grayson, deciding not to fuck around, channeled light mana through his feet and grew roots from the trees around him. They tunneled through the dirt and rock beneath his feet and up into the dome of rock around Keith.

  There was a shriek from within the dome and Keith burst out of it, roots worming their way into the creature. They broke off as Keith moved away from where they poked out of the ground, their rapid growth not quite enough to keep up with Keith’s faster movement. That was fine though. Grayson stepped in, reinforcing his fist with pure magic mana and delivered a swift uppercut into Keith’s cracked belly.

  Keith screamed and its many legs waved ineffectively as its belly rock shattered. From there, the fight devolved into Grayson finding and stepping on everything that looked important in the things that fell out. Wobbly pinata were the words that came to Grayson’s mind, but he dismissed them without saying anything.

  Wow, that was like a wobbly pinata.

  Really?

  Someone had to say it and you chickened out.

  I just felt it was in poor taste.

  How do you know? It’s fleshy. It could taste great.

  We aren’t eating Keith.

  I told you it’s clearly a Kyle.

  Either way, we aren’t eating it.

  Signal Fera. She gets final say. If she knows what it is and wants to eat it, you have to taste it.

  Fera arrived riding Mink shortly after Grayson launched up a fireball to signal his location to her. She landed to find Grayson poking a stick into his sword.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I accidentally coated my sword with a portal to space. I’m trying to figure out the rules of portals before I dispel it in case I can’t figure out how to do it again,” Grayson explained. The stick had been a foot long. Six inches were sticking out of the darkness. Grayson tried moving the stick to the edge of the blade. It caught on the edge. “Interesting.”

  Fera was at his shoulder looking intently at his sword in a second. She poked the stick and watched it bounce off the edge of the hole to space. She hummed satisfactorily. Grayson pulled the stick out and passed the stick across the portal like he was trying to cut the stick in half. He stopped with six inches of stick on one side of the blade and six inches on the other. They didn’t seem to be connected, but the six inches that weren’t in Grayson’s hand didn’t fall.

  Fera went off for a moment and came back with her own stick. She poked it into the sword, then pulled it out and felt it. There was a cold patch on the stick. It was noticeable but not a massive temperature difference.

  “Weird,” Fera said.

  “Why isn’t is absorbing the atmosphere?” Grayson asked. Fera shrugged.

  “Why would it?” she asked.

  “Because there’s no atmosphere in space.”

  “Really? But then how would anything breathe? And why do we have an atmosphere if space doesn’t? What’s keeping the atmosphere on our world?” Fera’s questions were a little bit too much for standing in the morning sun. They would require at least lunch.

  “Later. I want to check something. Can you pass me the water skin please?” Fera returned a moment later with the water skin and watched intently as Grayson dripped a single drop on the blade. It disappeared.

  “That was underwhelming…” Fera started but Grayson grinned.

  “Time for the real test,” he said, then poured a constant stream of water out from the skin into Fera’s hands. He swept the sword slowly through the stream just above Fera’s hands. She squeaked as an extremely cold, yet faint mist landed on her hand along with a trickle of cold, but apparently boiling water.

  “What was that?” She asked. Grayson grinned widely.

  “Confirmation and Sublimation.”