Cid stared deeply at his emerald status window while pondering his skills. His starting point wasn’t the greatest and his class’s potential was the worst since it lacked stats, but he didn't want to give up on it yet.

  A more reasonable player would have doubled down on the class and embraced their crafting potential, probably choosing to be a merchant or some sort of legendary blacksmith while letting others do the dirty work, but Cid didn’t want that life. He wanted to be deep in the middle of combat, fighting tooth and nail like an actual warrior without relying on anyone else.

  “Inventory! Pickup wolf!” the voice of the ruby-haired woman boomed from behind Cid.

  ‘There has to be some way to bypass my limits and grow stronger…’

  “I-Inventory! Take wolf!”

  ‘If I can find a way to weaponize the Crafter class, then maybe I can dish out lots of damage too, but what can I even–’

  “INVENTORY, TAKE–”

  “CAN YOU STOP SCREAMING, YOU MORON!?” Cid vocally challenged the unruly woman. Her voice was too much.

  She snapped her burning eyes towards him, her sword visibly twitching.

  ‘Oh. I see death reserving a grave for me. I need to defuse this…’

  “O-Otherwise you’ll hurt your beautiful voice, hahaha…”

  Expertly done.

  The woman still walked to Cid with an intense expression, his masterfully dissuasive words ineffective against her.

  “W-Wait! We can talk about this!” Cid jumped back while waving his hands disarmingly.

  “How am I supposed to activate the information window without giving it commands? You never played a voice-operated game before, you first-gen caveman?” She pointed her sword at him.

  “Command it using your thoughts, like how the system told you! Try it right now, think of unequipping your extremely pointy and lethally sharp sword…”

  She glared at him then looked down at her blade, her fierce gaze unbreaking. Her weapon, on the other hand, broke into a million crimson particles and vanished into nothing. The sight easily tamed her anger into surprise.

  “Oh. I see… That’s pretty convenient… You’re the type that pays attention to the tutorial, huh? My name is Heidee Steks.”

  “Hades Takes? Morbid name… I’m Cid Renz.”

  Was that her real name or an alias? It wouldn’t be strange to use their game-names here, but he refused to do that. CrimsonKillerTwiceBladed was not something he was proud of, after all.

  Heidee glared at him silently for a moment.

  “Alright… Cinders… Are you a coward? Wolves showed up and you didn’t even try to fight them. You knew it’s a game world, so why didn’t you?”

  “We can still die here. You can’t expect me to grab a sword and start swinging fearlessly without even knowing how the world works.”

  “That’s a lame excuse. I didn’t understand the world when I was a kid but that didn’t stop me from picking up random sticks and searching the neighborhood for stray dogs to beat up.”

  ‘She’s a psychopath! She’s an actual psychopath!’

  Cid chuckled worriedly, his eyes slowly drifting down to her injuries—her arm and leg were badly torn but they weren’t bleeding despite how deep the wound was.

  “Oof… Doesn’t that hurt you?” He winced from the sight alone.

  Heidee shrugged and wiggled her bloodied arm. “It did hurt at the start, very sharply too… but the pain didn’t linger. It looks rougher than it feels, maybe because they only did twenty damage to me.”

  “Twenty!? Oh… Wow… So you only have thirty health points left?”

  “No? I have a hundred and ten left.”

  “...A hun-! Ahem… I-I see…” Cid forced a smile.

  They both were level one, so why was there such a drastic difference between them? Was it because of his cursed role or was it because of hers?

  Heidee turned her gaze to the dead wolves thoughtfully. “The masked man in the suit told me that our bodies will adapt to any gaps in experience as long as it matches our level and intention. So if I want to avoid an attack, all I have to do is move away and my body will fix my mistakes based on my level and Agility stat.”

  Heidee manifested her plain sword and swung it a few times, measuring its feel.

  “I still couldn’t dodge the wolves how I wanted, but my body knew how to attack, where to attack and the right amount of pressure I needed behind the sword… as if I always fought with a real one…”

  Cid’s face beamed excitedly. He looked around for anything to grab and swing. He didn’t have to actually learn the deeper intricacies of combat, he just had to level up and do it automatically. His hands enthusiastically snatched a thin wooden branch from the ground—which was the length of his arm—and he heard a satisfying beep.

  [Objective: Gather Wood (1/20).]

  ‘Oh. This flimsy thing counts as wood? Hmm… It feels too brittle though. I want something heavier.’

  Cid let go of the stick and it abruptly shattered into particles of mossy energy.

  ‘It vanished?’

  “You put a stick in your inventory? Don’t you have a sword? Ah… but that’s smart… I don’t know if our weapons break… I should check.” Heidee suddenly glared at the air intently.

  Cid didn’t say anything, letting her make her own assumptions while he sliced the air with his fingers as if he was dramatically unzipping a bag.

  ________________________

  [Blueprint]

  Can save equipment, items or structures as a recipe | Tool | Infinite uses.

  [Wood] x 1

  Basic building resource | Resource | Single use.

  ________________________

  “What are you doing?” Heidee stared at Cid with furrowed brows.

  “Hm? What?”

  “That weird hand movement…”

  “Oh. I’m just summoning my inventory panel.”

  “By using your hands? Why? You told me it works fine with thoughts alone.”

  “Yeah, but… this feels more satisfying?”

  “Well, so does shouting.”

  “No! Shouting harms innocent ears!”

  “So what!? It makes me feel alive, why should I care about your ears?” Heidee snapped.

  ‘I’ll lose my hearing around this lunatic…’ Cid sighed, hoping she didn’t.

  Heidee shrugged and pointed at the air.

  “The help box says our weapons don't have a durability system but they can break under some circumstances… I wanna test it out by doing my quest. Do you wanna join me and kill twenty wolves, Cinders?”

  “Uhh… no. I’m going to… stay here and… keep the corpses you killed… uhh… protected from loot vultures. You know… the first rule of RPGs is to collect and sell everything so you could buy a strong weapon in town. Hahahah… hah…”

  “Ah… You’re the type of player who likes to gear up to the teeth before you progress? Alright, enjoy guarding corpses while I go have actual fun.” Heidee shook her disappointed head and walked deeper in the forest.

  “Ugh… I want to join her, it sounds exciting… and with her around as a decoy, I wouldn’t have to worry too much about dying… but she practically one-shotted those three wolves. Considering my damage debuff, I’ll probably get treated like an accessory while she does all the work. I need a weapon, at least. Gauge my damage before I even think about hunting things.”

  Cid let his thoughts wander while he bent over, grabbing a few small rocks and twigs, or simply touching them to break them into glittering sparkles—he didn’t even have to consciously think about the command, just the feeling of wanting it in his inventory was enough to transport them.

  [Objective: Collect wood (4/20).]

  [Objective: Collect stone (6/20).]

  ‘I can’t accept being her shadow if I want to be a powerful fighter. I gotta kill wolves by myself. I need to experiment until I figure out how to bypass my weakness…’

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  [Objective: Collect wood (10/20).]

  [Objective: Collect stone (15/20).]

  ‘I wonder if the new recipes will give me a cool weapon…’

  [Objective: Collect wood (14/20).]

  [Objective: Collect stone (20/20) – Gained 5 XP!]

  [Acquired Wolf (Level 2).]

  [Acquired Wolf (Level 1).]

  “Huh?”

  Cid’s palm pressed against the soft fur of the third slain beast but it didn’t vanish like the rest—he was too confused to give the mental order for stowing it away.

  “I moved them into my inventory? But Hades was trying and couldn’t… Why did it work for me?”

  A familiar small window popped up next to Cid.

  [Help: Why did it work for me? — The Crafter’s inventory does not have the same size and type restrictions as newer roles. It adheres to its original Legacy design.]

  “Interesting… Then I could just…”

  Cid grinned and tapped the last wolf, making it glow a calming green and disappear like enchanted dust. He excitedly moved to a large pale tree and pressed both of his palms against its trunk.

  “I’ll put this entire forest in my inventory! Hahahaha!” Cid laughed and looked up at the steadfast wood as it silently judged him, refusing to go inside his pocket space.

  “Hahah…ha… Dammit, I knew it was too easy to be true…”

  ‘Back to leveling up…’

  Cid sighed then picked up a few more branches while imagining himself fighting wolves heroically, each digital deep resonating with every imaginary kill.

  [Objective: Collect wood (20/20) – Gained 5 XP!]

  [You leveled up! Level 2 Recipes Unlocked!]

  “Finally! Give me a weapon!”

  Cid excitedly slid his fingers across the air with a commanding authority.

  “Appear before me, my recipes!”

  A soft edged space materialized around him, creating a transparent section of ivory that looked holographic thanks to the green grid-lines decorating everything.

  In the middle of the “room” was a collection of unassuming furniture: a translucent beige table, a plain chair, a cream-hued bench and a primitive stone axe hovering in the air.

  Cid blinked twice in surprise. Several pop-ups quickly bombarded him in a quick succession, each attached to a thread leading back to their specified object.

  [Basic Workbench: 10 wood, 10 stones.]

  [Stone Axe: 2 wood, 3 stones.]

  [Plain Table: 6 wood, 6 stone.]

  [Plain Chair: 4 wood, 4 stone.]

  “These are my recipes? Doesn’t look like much… What did I get for reaching level two?”

  Everything turned as dull as ash except for the plain furniture which enjoyed a coat of glittering gold.

  “Ah… M-Maybe the next level up will be better? This is just the start, the rest can’t be– No, who am I fooling? A Crafter is not a combat class! It won’t give me weapons! And what the hell are these!? I can’t go around fighting wolves with a trashy stone axe and wooden chairs!”

  Cid sighed and tapped his temple to prod out any useful ideas.

  “Think… What can I do to become a combat class? If my recipes are useless then… I can make my own! Right! I can use my Blueprint to copy Hades’s sword when she returns. It’s probably stronger than this Jurassic era axe… In the meantime, let me continue my objectives and level up so my body can do cool stuff too.”

  Cid turned his focus to the ethereal workbench within his recipe-domain.

  “Okay… Uhh… how do I build this?”

  The white room vanished and a small text box flashed in front of him to answer his question.

  [Help: How do I build? — Crafters can build recipes by thinking of the corresponding object or structure filling an available space. In case the space is occupied, Crafters can still force the construction at the cost of its integrity. Crafters cannot build on air unless the recipe allows it. In addition, the [Quick Builder] skill is only available for recipes that are mastered.]

  “Sounds easy enough.”

  Cid imagined the workbench’s vivid placement under the shade of a tree. “That’s where I wanna build it…” He nodded to himself then noticed someone with flowy dark hair standing in front of him with his back turned. The man wore the same outfit as Cid and walked to the tree he marked.

  ‘Is that another player? He didn’t have the same showy entrance as Hades…’

  The man crouched down and moved his hand to the side, instantly summoning a stack of impressively carved stone tiles, blocks and lumber—a few pale planks and sturdy wooden beams.

  [Lost 10 wood, 10 left.]

  [Lost 10 stone, 10 left.]

  ‘Huh? Why did I lose my…’

  The strange man pulled out an ethereal sheet of luminescent paper, magnificently glowing a vibrant azure. The gridded paper instantly transformed to a small hammer with a pattern of squares.

  The man turned to his side and grabbed one of the stone tiles, revealing his face which was a striking resemblance to Cid’s. If he didn’t know better then he would have mistaken the man for his long lost twin.

  ‘Creepy. They must’ve spawned an NPC helper that looks like me… I don’t know how to feel about him…’

  Cid scratched his head then looked at his own see-through arm.

  “HUH!?”

  He quickly patted his half-visible chest and his spectral legs then moved his transparent hands in front of his face to inspect them closely. It was clear that the system killed him and replaced his body with someone else.

  ‘No, that’s not possible! Wait, hold on! Stop!’

  A brutal gravitational yank forced him back into his actual body, it was painful enough to make his physical self gasp when he merged back.

  “They turned me into an NPC! Those bastards won’t even let me build this thing by myself!?”

  Cid’s eyes darted down to the plank of wood and the transparent hammer he was firmly holding. The building blocks in front of him looked nothing like what he gathered—sticks and stones had somehow turned to larger slabs and cubic puzzle pieces.

  “N-Not that I know how to build, so maybe this is for the better… Well… since I can go back to my body anytime, this isn’t as worrisome…”

  Just the thought of resuming construction made him float away from his true body again, as if his soul detached from his physical being. He watched his body working masterfully for a few minutes while his spectral form hovered in zero gravity.

  ‘It looks like it’ll take some time… I don’t want to wait for this to finish, so how far can I move away from my body? And if I do that then… I won’t just vanish and disappear, right?’

  Cid looked at his automated body with a frown until a familiar little window showed up again to reassure him.

  [Help: Build Mode — The body’s motor functions are overridden to assist with constructing recipes. Simultaneously, the Crafter’s awareness and senses are synchronized with observational data to create the illusion of moving around.]

  “Oh.”

  [The Crafter is not in an actual incorporeal form, thus they will remain unharmed as long as their main body remains untouched. The Crafter will regain motor commands when halting construction, finishing construction, or if attacked.]

  “Thank you, Boxy. You’re as useful as always.” Cid patted the small panel’s upper frame with a smile then stared deeper into the forest.

  “That means I can explore while he… Hmm… I need to give him a name too… Uhh… I’ll go explore while Bill works.” Cid smiled and waved at his worker drone.

  “Off I go! To adventure while I’m an impervious ghost!”

  Spirit-Cid glided happily across the ground and swerved past trees like a snake. He flew up and quickly learned that he couldn’t float as high as he wanted. By his estimate, he guessed he could only move around two or three meters in the air, but it was still enough to scour the lands for anything eye-catching.

  As he scanned the forest, he noticed a change in the ground some distance away from him, where the land started to tremble and shift to paler colors and intangible shapes, and then further beyond that was just an ashen void of nothing, as if the world simply ended.

  “Ah. That’s the boundary of my observer mode then?”

  The current distance between Cid and Bill was around twenty meters, if he measured it right, and there were thirty more meters before everything turned into a jumbled mess.

  A collection of howls distracted him from his attempts at verifying the range.

  ‘Whoa-ho! That sounded like a lot of dogs. I wonder what’s happening…’

  Cid floated towards the sound like a zombie, following the growing snarls and yelps of wolves.

  And it was as he thought. The sounds were cries of pain, a result of Heidee brutalizing the wolves. It was clear she fought many other beasts before this pack since her gray tunic was now dyed in layers of deep crimson. Her dark leather armor only consisted of torn vambraces and leg guards, most of the protective leathers on her torso were missing, exposing three claw marks on her tunic which revealed much of her skin. It somehow gave her an intimidating, barbaric look of a blood-starved warrior.

  She raised her arm defensively and allowed one of the attacking wolves to latch on with its teeth. Another hastily leaped towards her in a swift and coordinated assault.

  Heidee grinned and moved her arm closer, using the gnawing wolf as a shield against its brother while cleverly lining them up.

  Without pause, she quickly thrust her blade through both of them, forcing the first beast to let go of her and cry sharply.

  “Ha! Bite me harder, you mutts!” Heidee laughed then turned her focus towards a third wolf dashing to her.

  She quickly hopped closer and impaled the sword downwards in time with the beast’s lunge, skewering all three of them into the ground with one move.

  “Hell yeah! My body is so responsive and amazing!”

  A fourth wolf sprinted out from a nearby cave and zoomed towards her but she barely cared and just started shadow boxing and punching the air a few times with an excited grin.

  “I want to try close quarter combat! The same style from the movies. Wait for the enemy to attack and then…”

  The wolf leaped at her with a snarl and she countered by kicking its head up with her heel. Her feet glided closer and she grabbed one of its paws and the thick fur on its chest.

  “...bam!” Heidee Judo slammed the beast aggressively against the ground with an audible thud, its body leaving an imprint as a testament of her strength.

  The creature squirmed and tried to stand up but she crushingly stomped its skull to deny it, forcing out a deep crunch from the impact.

  “Hahahah! I move so fluidly! I love this! I want more! I want to fight people! Other players! This isn’t enough!” The easily-agitated woman from earlier had vanished, replaced with an overjoyed killing machine drenched in blood. She looked more like a menacing beast than the poor broken victims under her.

  Cid stood there with a pale expression, worried she might return with a deep hunger for his blood. It wasn’t going to end well since he couldn’t defend himself yet.

  She suddenly turned towards him, her crimson eyes sharp and focused. “Cinders…”

  Cid jolted and raised his hands up instinctively. “Wait, no, I’m allergic to punches, my face swells up when–”

  “He would’ve enjoyed this too… Tsk… Games are more fun with others, I wonder why he stayed back.” Heidee relaxed her posture without toning down her glare.

  Cid cocked a brow and traced her gaze to a distant cave behind him, its cracked entrance surrounded by the barely visible shapes of more wolves.

  ‘Oh. She was looking at her next hunting ground and just happened to call my name… I thought I was next… Hehe…’

  Heidee picked up the carcasses under her and moved them to a nearby sled crafted out of a broken tree husk wrapped in dark leather.

  ‘Hm? Isn’t that the leather from her armor? This greedy woman… She tore down her only defense just to get more wolf corpses? She’s so pointlessly reckless… but one hundred and thirty… I guess she has the health to be reckless.’

  Cid sighed and observed her as she slowly pulled the sled back east, towards their initial spawn location.

  He wanted to explore the den she cleared, but the world had other plans. A powerful tug viciously pulled his body through the trees at an insane speed, as if his shirt was caught on the world’s fastest train—he didn’t even know what was happening, everything just turned to a blur from his perspective.

  Without warning, he crashed violently into his real body with pain on the same level as getting kicked by a roided up horse. Cid instantly groaned and gripped his throbbing head, finding himself in front of a masterfully plain crafting bench.

  [Basic Workbench mastered – Gained 10 XP!]

  [Objective: Build a workbench (1/1) – Gained 5 XP!]

  [You leveled up! Level 3 recipes unlocked!]

  “Oh… It’s finished… Will I finally have a weapon?”