"Hello, boy! How are you?" (1st man)
"uh….uh" (me)
"Son, you are okay! Thank God" (2nd man)
"My child!" (1st woman)
"My master is blessed by God' CURRIAN' ( God of Healing )." (2nd woman)
[who are these people? Why am I here? ooh, maybe I was rescued.]
"He is looking fine. Now Pay 5 gold coins." (1st person)
"But the price set by the Church is 1 gold coin." (2nd person)
"This is the problem of you cheap people. First, you say 'just save my child. I will do anything', and when I just ask the price to pay, you start remembering the price list. How can a person DEVOTE himself to the service of God? Save this world! My God CURRIAN "(1st person)
"That's why my master hate these kinds of people" (2nd woman)
[what are they talking about God CURRIAN? Price? Five gold coins?…](me)
"No, it's just that…. I did not mean it that way. Here is the money. Thank you for saving my child!" (2nd person)
[Aaahhh……..my body have no energy I want to sleep…](me)
----
[I was from a small city on Earth and lived with my loving parents. Our family's primary income was from farming. They gave me financial and emotional support for the study to get a better future, but they died of illness. I was not even able to have an excellent job to have enough money to save them.
After their death, I became hopeless in this world without any goal and loved one to care for me. So, one day, while I was lost in these depressing thoughts and crossing the road, got hit by the truck. Rest is as you see now.]
----
"where am I?" (me)
"you are at home, my son." (1st woman)
"How are you feeling, kola?" (2nd man)
"Home? It is just that my head hurts." (me or Kola)
[Now that I see, I am on a bed with a yellow colour blanket. This room is made of mud. Nothing like any modern city buildings.] (me)
"Kola! Never fight with any bad person and try to be a hero. See what has happened!" (1st woman)
"Don't put us in more trouble. See how much troubled your mother is. This money was near all our savings. It was for your future in the city but now gone. " (2nd man)
"What money! Why care for money if our son is not there? Don't say anything to my son. If guards and King were doing their job properly. Why would anyone need to face those thieves." (1st woman or mother)
[wait a minute! Son! King!…what they are saying?](me)
"what are you saying? Where am I? why would I fight thieves?" (me / Kola)
"Don't you remember. You are at Home, I am your mother, Rena and he is your father, Pata. Your name is Kola. You fought with the thieves trying to steal from you and your father on the way to the city, Gazina. That's why you are wounded." (1st woman / Rena/ mother)
"What is the name of this place, and who were people earlier? What was there names? right, Haku and Meena?" (me / Kola)
"This is Merata, your home village. Haku is the priest and Meena is his helper from the church." (Pata / 2nd man)
"It is getting late. You should rest for now." (1st woman / Rena/ mother)
----
I hear a buzzing noise in my head. Then I fall asleep. I had a dream. In this dream, I was Kola, a happy child of Pata and Rena of age 17, will be 18 in two months. This village, Merata, has a population of 213 total only. Suppose, if you ask about must know people of the village. In that case, there are two people from the CURRIAN Church Haku and Meena, three village security guard Sam, Tate, Grud, adventurer guild officer Turner, the village chief, Manoj and their families.
I woke up in the midnight all drenched in sweet and perspiring. It looks like that while I died in an accident with the truck, thieves killed this Kola. For some mysterious reasons, our souls either got swiped, or I had occupied his body. I don't know whether this is a second chance to me by a benevolent god/ goddesses or some bad joke of evil god/ goddess. But if this is an opportunity is given to me then let us see, can I have a different path in this life with a happy ending.
----
I woke up early morning the next day. Today, after eating breakfast, I will go to the farms with my father.
While walking to the farms, I show some beautiful flowers along the road.
"What are these beautiful flowers, Pata?"
"They are medicinal herbs planted by the farmer. They sell well and are always in demands."
You can sell them to Turner, the guild officer, as these plants are easy to get and grow all years. So it's good extra income for the farmers, even the cheapest one exchanges for 5 copper coins. While, there are few herbs found in the forest, which go for as high as 2 silver coins each. But these wild herds are hard to find and has a risk to wild animals attack during the search.
Also, he told me that 1 gold coin = 100 silver coins and 1 silver coins= 100 copper coins. There are other currencies, but my father had never seen them.
He also warned me that I should not go in the forest, as this forest has animals like wolf, fox. The guards have to handle any stranded animal who attack the village/ villagers, and if guards can't take care of them. The village chief will put a request for subjugation to the guild. Guild will send adventurers to take care of these problems. This forest also has goblins, but we have not seen them for a long time.
He told me that if the traps set by him get a rabbit, then we can have meat for dinner.
When we reached the farms, there are three forms, paddy fields, vegetable fields and herbs fields. Our work here is to remove grasses growing in these areas. We get three harvests a year from these fields for herbs and vegetables, while rice and wheat are one harvest alternately each year. After selling the extra output and herbs, a yearly income of 15-20 gold -coins or 1-2 gold each month.
The most contribution comes to form herb-crop sell. But it is also the most variable income (10-15 gold coins ) as it sometimes does not grow well and would then not even be worth a single 1 silver coin. This volatile nature of herbs output and unexpected circumstances, sometimes forces people in need of more money to enter the forest and get the wild grasses, which sold for more money but always has a risk of getting attacked by a wolf or fox. So, the farmer doesn't prefer this.
But few families in the village are not farmers but hunters. They go to the forest and hunt for rabbit, deer, boar for meat and skin, and look for the wild herbs as extra income meanwhile. As those families have a high mortality rate, it is not the village's preferred job.
Well, when we started our weed extermination project. Father is a pro; he removed about 500 weeds by afternoon before lunch and 600 weeds in the evening. In contrast, I removed about 100 and 150 weeds in the same periods. Then we went to check the traps. We found a rabbit. So, dinner will be rabbit meat. Thus, farmers life is not bad here.
----
Our weed extermination project continued to 10 days. In this time, I have learned how to make traps from my father, dismantle rabbits with a knife and take out their fur. Fur from a Rabbit sells for about 2-5 copper coins at the guild.
Today, my father will take me to the forest a little deeper to show me the wild herbs, which sells for more on my request after much pestering him since the day he mentioned them. They are green-mist grass (also planted by farmers), purple grass, red-flower grass, and orange-flower grass. We collected 5 green-mist, 3 purple, 2 red-flower, and 1 orange-flower grass and hunted 2 rabbits.
[1 green-mist grass = 10 copper coins]
[1 purple grass = 20 copper coins]
[1 red-flower grass = 1 silver coin]
[1 orange-flower grass = 2 silver coins]
In the evening, we went to Tuner to sell the hunt and talk to him when he went to Gazina. As now we both need new adventurer cards. Also, we have lost our cart with bulls to the thieves. So, we need to get a lift from Tuner.
" How are you, Pata? Kola, are you feeling well now?" (Tuner)
" I am fine, Tuner, uncle." (Kola)
" We are fine. We came for two reasons. First to sell these hunt and few herbs from the forest and second, We need new cards from the guild. So, When will you go to the city?" (Pata)
"These are 5 green-mist, 3 purple, 2 red-flower and 1 orange-flower grass and fur of 12 rabbits. It will be 5 silver and 70 copper coins. After cutting my service charge of 2 silver coins, it is 3 silver and 70 copper coins. About the card, I am planning to go to the city tomorrow as I already have sufficient things to transfer to the guild headquarter. So, if you wish, you both can join me."(Tuner)
"That will be very good for us. Okay, see you tomorrow, then." (Pata)
"Bye, Turner, Uncle!" (Kola)
----
Next day, we started our journey to the Gazina city with Tuner. We talked about many things. Given my recent accidents Tuner was very patiently quenching my new thrust for knowledge.
In this country, Boish, the lowest rank cards issued by any guild, i.e., H-rank, like adventurer, merchant, Blacksmith, etc., are using as the identity cards. For a healer, like Haku, healer card issued by the respective churches are used. Higher rank cards need a fee, called maintenance fee, as there many extra benefits provided by their respective guilds. Any of these cards has an extraordinary function, which allows you to see what skills and level you have. These things decide what is an excellent job for you, etc. In this world, people have two types of skills. One is God gifted called Divine mercy.
In contrast, the other kind of skills is trained, called earned skill/power. Divine skills help you learn a new skill and are 1-5 in numbers. Talent to learn a new skill is proportional to the number of divine mercy. So, 1-poor, 2-common, 3-good, 4-rare, and 5- exceptional. Both my parents have 2 divine mercy gifts.
Also, the level is significant, as it will set the upper limit to how much you will grow. For example, a person with level-1 will have his strength, defence, intelligence, etc. upper limit 10, while a level-2 will have his strength, defence, intelligence, etc. upper limit 20. So, each level gives 10 more to the upper limit. When a person or animal is born, they are at level-0, the value of strength, defence, etc. Therefore, a person or animal or monster will have the following status for level-0,
Job: none Level: 0
HP : 15 MP : 15 SP : 15
Body Attributes :
1. Physical Strength(PS) : 1/1 2. Magic Strength(MS) : 1/1
3. Physical Defense(PD) : 1/1 4. Magic Defense(MD) : 1/1
5. Body Density(BD) : 1/1 6. Intelligence(INT) : 1/1
7. Agility(AGI) : 1/1 8. Wisdom(WIS) : 1/1
Note:- Other details open up when you reach at least level 1 and age 18 years old.
HP: Health Points acts like your life measure. When it reaches '0', it means that you are dead, and more HP means hard to kill.
MP: Mana Points, acts as your mental power measure. When it reaches '0', you will not be able to do any spiritual work and have a severe headache. Also, mana is necessary for work, like healing, magic casting, etc.
SP: Stamina Points acts as your physical work capacity measure. When it reaches '0', you will not be able to do any physical work and faint or have a fever. It is a must to have to move your body.
Job: Indicates what kind of work you are doing daily. Like, Healer for someone who heals other's injuries, Hunter for those who hunt animals, etc.
Level: tells you what range of status the being in question can have.
Body Attributes: are the different properties of the body of the being in question and help us answer questions like, how strong? How intelligent? Etc. The being is. These attributes are namely,
Physical Strength(PS): measures the physical attack power of the creature in question.
Magic Strength(MS): measures the magic attack power of the being in question.
Physical Defense(PD): measures physical defence power against the physical attacks of the being in question.
Magic Defense(MD): measures magical defence power against magic attacks of the being in question.
Body Density(BD): This decides how strong your body composition compared to the level-0. High BD will give you more HP value, i.e., hard to kill.
Intelligence(INT): As the name indicate, it tells how quickly you are at understanding the situations, and it helps in learning magic-related things and or being a leader with wisdom.
Wisdom(WIS): It indicates how good you are at making decisions, and wisdom and intelligence complement each other. These two are needed for being a leader or for good at magic related things.
Agility(AGI): It measures how agile you are relative to the level-0. Higher the value faster, you are at moving.
Skills: Two Types, 1. Divine mercy skills, and 2. Earned skills. Skills are needed for doing a specific thing and for increasing the status.
These things were told to me by Turner. As the guild representative here. He knows many things that, generally, people do not know. He used to be an adventurer but retired and moved here as a guild representative.
Road to the city is made of the soil, pebbles, and grass on it, while trees dominate roadsides. Except, only when we are near the two villages in between our village and Gazina city, namely, Ventela village and Amara village.
During the journey, Turner told me about many things. As an adventurer, he had many experiences and learned a lot of things. The followings are a summary of what he told me.
This world has 9 continents and many small islands. The biggest continent, called the main continent, is ruled by Demon lord and have monsters and demons only. This world is ruled by wild animals, monsters, and demons. Monsters are animals found in dungeons, as they have a magic core in them, which makes them able to use magic. Therefore, adventurer guilds of the respective countries maintain dungeons by sending adventurers to harvest magic cores. At the same time, humanoid monsters like goblins, orcs, ogres, undead, devils are called demons.
Humans in this world also look the same as humans on Earth. In comparison, so-called demi-humans have many kinds in them: elves, dark-elves, high-elves, dwarfs, and different beast-kins. Dragons have a unique position as they are not attached to any groups but are at the top of the food chain and will eat anyone without discrimination if hungry. Demi-humans worship them as representatives of the Gods.
The second biggest continent, called the divine continent, is ruled by the God Currian church and mainly have Humans.
Other continents are Bent, Austi, Insa, Tifa, Indus, Ganges, and Nandi continents in their decreasing order of area. Indus continent is were our Boish kingdom is. It is a frontier kingdom with the fight between monsters and humans. While the Ganges continent has mainly Humans and Demi-humans. Other continents have demi-humans, Humans, and monsters in a struggle for domination.
The sea also has sea-people and monsters, but as the sea is vast, no one can claim control. So, they have moved to the areas where they have the least interaction with humans. So, past 200 years no one had seen sea-people, but monsters do attack ships sometimes. Thus, regular sea-monster extermination is carried out by adventurer guild, funded by merchant guild, kingdoms, empires, and the church.
Time is divided based on the motion of the sun and the moon and seasons. There are 4 seasons of summer, rain, winter, and autumn. Each season lasts for 3 months, and the time taken for 1 complete set of 4 seasons is 1 year. So, 1 year has 4 seasons or 12 months or 360 days. By the way, it is 2nd month of the winter season now.
While we were talking all these things, the trees became less, and soon we could see farms. It is my first visit to the city, Gazina after the accident. Sometimes we could see houses built between the farms as we got nearer to the city. Then, finally, we arrived at the gate. There was a line of 3 carriages and 20 people for entry in the city. They are another small gate in which people are passing without a problem. It is a gate for people living outside the city wall to go inside. They had a passage issued to use this pass.
When or turn came, the guard asked for the identity card.
"Show your identity cards!" (guard)
"This is my adventurer card, and these two had to get their new cards issued." (Tuner)
"Okay! then one of us had to follow you to make sure that there is no problem." (guard)
And one of the extra guards came with us.
Turner," This is my adventurer card, and these two had to get their new cards issued."
Its style is confusing to read, why not: "This is my adventurer card, and these two had to get their new cards issued." (turner)
Another thing: too much info-dumping, no engagement with other people to slowly get the knowledge. It's not interesting to read while we are not invested in anyone in the story yet.