The ordeal was finally over. Four guards lay motionless, and we were left in an uneasy silence, unsure if our skirmish had alerted anyone. The aftermath was a grisly tableau of blood and gore that painted a morbid picture of our encounter.

  Blood was splattered indiscriminately, staining the walls, the floor, and even our clothing in places. The metallic scent of it was thick in the air, a nauseating reminder of the violence we’d just committed. My stomach churned at the sight, and I could feel bile rise to my throat. I had seen blood before, but the sheer volume and the grim circumstances made the scene all the more grotesque.

  It was apparent to us that even if we hid the bodies, the remnants of our battle would tell a tale of their own to any who ventured here. The blood was too pervasive, too telling, and cleaning it was beyond our capacity, both in terms of time and resources. Resigned to this fact, we decided to leave the bodies where they had fallen.

  The only solace that steadied my reeling mind was the stark reality that these men were slavers. They traded in lives, exploited the helpless, and showed no compassion to their fellow beings. Given their heinous deeds, they were undeserving of any mercy. This thought, although grim, provided some justification for the carnage and helped to quell the rising tide of nausea and guilt.

  I was broken out of my thoughts by Jack’s anger. “What level are you? You nearly got us killed there.”

  Surprised at his anger, I responded truthfully, “Eleven and I did the best I could.”

  “Eleven?” Jack rubbed his face, trying not to explode. “You should have warned me. These people have training and armor. If you had let me know, someone else could have held this position with me.”

  That wasn’t true, and he knew it. I learned the new language exceedingly quickly. Well, Rabbit did, but he didn’t go anywhere without me.

  “I survived the ship, and I was an even lower level then. I think we will be fine.”

  Jack thought for a moment, then replied, “I don’t think you even realized how you survived. Neither did I until this moment. Do you remember being in the mess hall and facing a group of people? The only reason you survived was because they attacked you in a group, and this isn’t the same situation.”

  “What are you talking about?” When I was in that fight, I was easily manhandled. They had knocked me over and held me down with their weight.

  “You really didn’t realize why you survived? They were all grouped too tightly, their resistance clashing, weakening their strength. I figured you had a higher level, keeping them in check with your level. But I was completely wrong. It was their own power that was keeping them as weak as you. Yet, consider this,” he said, spreading his arms wide to encompass the surroundings. “This space isn’t confined like their ship. Here, you’ll face a real disadvantage.”

  I’d never really considered it, but in hindsight, I should have. Attributes were a curious thing, far from what I’d expected. Initially, I assumed having more Strength would bulk you up, like Jack or Carrick. But it turned out to be more of an enhancer. If you were already strong, it boosted your Strength by a certain percentage.

  Constitution was similar but different. Like Strength, it didn’t physically alter your appearance. Instead, it bolstered what you already had. The dynamics between Strength and Constitution were fascinating. When both an attacker and defender possessed 20 in Strength and Constitution, their effects would nullify each other. If one’s strength exceeded the other’s, the advantage was only a marginal difference.

  During that brawl in the mess hall, I was significantly outmatched by everyone else. However, their advantage dwindled not because of my Constitution, but due to their own interference. This leveled the playing field to some extent, though it wasn’t much of a consolation given their numbers. I would reckon Jack overestimated my performance, as from that point, it was essentially a slow-motion sequence of me being overwhelmed.

  Jack realized he was shaking around the bloody sword while yelling, dropped it, walked over to his ax, and removed it from the previous guard. It looked so easy, I had to ask, “When I attacked the first person, my sword got stuck in him. I couldn’t get it out before I was attacked. How did you get your ax out so easily?”

  “A rookie mistake. First, an ax is a real warrior’s weapon. Most people underestimate it, but my family used it for generations and have mastered its use. When you pull an ax out, you pull the handle down like a lever, and the leverage pulls it out. A sword doesn’t have that same effect. You have to use your leg as a counterweight to pull it out hard,” Jack answered, walking over to the sword, putting his foot on the guard, and pulling it out.

  I went over to the first guard I killed and put my foot on him and yanked up. “No. Don’t yank the way you put it in. Pull it straight out,” Jack explained. I then shifted so I could pull the sword straight toward me instead of pulling it up. It came out with a little force, accompanied by a slurping sound. With a nod of approval, he continued, “During the battle, you might not have been able to retrieve the sword because of the level difference, even when using the correct techniques.”

  I frowned, as the level difference was an issue, but being annoyed, I still wanted to argue. “That makes sense and all, but if that were true, then how did the sword stab him in the first place?”

  Jack’s eyebrow went up as if he was questioning my sanity. “Because swords are sharp.” When I didn’t reply, he continued, “You might be much stronger than a five-year-old, but even with how weak they are, a child could stab you with a knife just as well. Stats aren’t everything, especially when it comes to surprise attacks.”

  After retrieving my sword, I continued to collect items before we could get interrupted. The first order of business was to reclaim the money we had previously handed over to the head guard. Scooping it up, I stowed the coins back into my pouch. Next, my attention turned to the weapons scattered about. My gaze toggled between my sword and the captain’s weapon. The latter appeared superior in quality, prompting me to swap my old blade for it.

  Though the captain’s sword was significantly larger than my pouch, it seemed to dissolve as I fed it into the opening. The tip vanished as if being absorbed into another dimension, leaving only the hilt and the remaining visible length of the blade. As I continued to push it in, the rest of the sword followed suit, disappearing into the seemingly bottomless pouch until my hand was the only thing left. The sword had dematerialized, yet my hand remained visible.

  I knew I could summon the sword back. I would reach into the bag, arrange my fingers correctly, and the sword would rematerialize in my hand. Alternatively, if I summoned the sword without reaching into the bag, the hilt would reappear within the bag, allowing me to draw it out. I had experimented with various permutations of this during our voyage, discovering that a clenched fist would prevent the sword from materializing. A loose grip, however, with just two fingers, was enough for the blade to manifest itself.

  My experiments on the ship were focused on understanding the bag’s mechanics and how to summon a sword from it, not on preparing for a situation where I might need an extra weapon. I had overlooked the necessity of storing additional weapons in the bag. This realization served as a stark reminder that in life, we often learned through experience, sometimes from our oversights and mistakes. Thankfully, this time, the lesson wasn’t accompanied by dire consequences.

  I grabbed the other extra weapons that were lying around and was thinking about looting the armor when Jack said, coming out of a room, “It’s an armory over here.”

  “One moment,” I replied.

  “What are you doing over there?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing. But I need another moment,” I replied, so Jack went to check the other room.

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  I started Soul-Absorbing each guard in turn. At first, my abdomen wound closed, and then all of my other wounds started healing. This Soul Absorption and quick regeneration were a powerful combination. By the time Jack had gotten out of the last room, I was absorbing the remaining guard. He looked at me, and I stared back.

  “What are you doing?” Jack asked, perplexed.

  “Oh, nothing. I’m done,” I said, and by that point, I was finished.

  “You’re lying to me. Your eyes lit up as if a torch was shining behind them, the blue of your eyes nearly turning white, they were so bright,” Jack explained while staring me down for an answer.

  He caught me lying red-handed. The only thing I could do was tell him the truth. “Okay, don’t tell anyone because I’m not fully sure about it yet either. I have an ability. It helps me heal quickly and gain experience. Other people might freak out if they knew about it,” I confided in Jack. I didn’t tell him the whole thing, but I was pretty sure if anyone knew it had to do with souls, it would be dangerous for me. I didn’t have to be from this world to understand that someone stealing souls was a fast way to be burned at the stake.

  “I understand hiding an ability. That is common practice, but not when it can make a difference in a combat situation. I have abilities, combat abilities, but they usually only make a difference when they are needed. Once they are used, I can’t use them again for some time. Yours seems to be the case where the more you use it, the better it is for everyone on your team, which is helpful to know. So why are you hiding it?” he questioned.

  I considered it for a moment, then replied, “Remember, I am a low level. You were just complaining about it. However, it’s easy to dismiss something that poses a threat in its infancy. I bet you that this is an ability that would raise many eyebrows. I don’t think it’s actually healing me. I think it’s giving me energy, which helps my already-boosted regeneration powers. The main concern for people is the experience it gives me. Just think about how strong I could get if I could level up on people I didn’t kill.”

  Jack looked at me and nodded. “You are right. Some wouldn’t want that threat. However, I don’t think you would be that big of a menace in the first place, even if you got to a high level. I heard that you can’t learn many skills.” He paused for a second so I could nod. “If that is true, you can’t access where a lot of people’s power comes from. Indeed, if you sharpened and used that ability, you might be able to shoot an arrow as fast or as hard as someone with a high skill who earned it, but with ten times the effort. Others will know that and won’t try to eliminate the ‘threat in its infancy’ as you put it.”

  According to Jack’s insights, my concerns about exposing my ability seemed less pressing. I could continue to use it without revealing its true nature. The thought of no longer having to hide it was liberating, especially since Jack mentioned my eyes glowing during the process. This was news to me. How could I have known without looking in a mirror during absorption? I felt relief knowing my ability wasn’t the danger I had initially perceived. It had proven invaluable today, and yet, I had assumed it would make me a threat to others. Who would have thought that the absence of conventional skills could be beneficial in its own way? Lacking skills and appearing weak meant I had less of a target on my back.

  “Okay, but can you still not tell anyone?” I appealed.

  “Sure, but we should get moving,” he said calmly.

  “Woah. Hold on. We have to loot the armory, and what was in the other room?”

  “Really? We don’t have time for this,” Jack added. He seemed disinterested in loot, which to me was extremely odd.

  “Weapons out of the enemy’s hands and into our hands? That is worth a couple of moments,” I said.

  “Listen, they aren’t my enemies. These are my people, and I do care about them,” Jack explained, surprising me.

  “Then why are you here killing them?” I questioned it because that was just confusing. I thought for a while he was helping out of gratitude for me rescuing him. But maybe he had his own agenda.

  “Because they are slavers. I may have grown up being taught that is the way of the world, but there is no honor in slavery. The only reason I shared this information with you is that I thought it might help my country. I have seen what they do to the slaves, and it is killing the soul of my people, making them more callous and cruel even to each other. If you can make it less profitable, then they will eventually be slaveless. The problem now is that it makes them too much money. However, these are my people, and I want to help them, not hurt them,” Jack explained like it was the most reasonable thing ever.

  While I had no vested interest in the nation here, I shared Jack’s antislavery stance, making us allies of sorts. However, our reasons seemed to diverge. Jack appeared to oppose slavery due to its detrimental impact on the moral fabric of his society. On the other hand, my opposition was because they were injuring the freaking slaves. I’d guess we were at cross purposes because I didn’t believe it was a forgivable action. I thought about how to change his mind, and then I realized that this was not the place for it.

  “You want to help them? Stealing these weapons can stop them from what they are doing. What was in the other room?”

  “I don’t see how taking their weapons will uplift my people. But it was the head guard’s chambers. There was just his bed, stuff, and some papers,” Jack replied, clearly not convinced.

  “Those papers have to have some inventory lists and transfers of slaves. Do you think those might be useful?” I reasoned.

  “Yeah,” he said sullenly.

  “Good. You get those, and I’ll go to the armory,” I said, and left. Jack, I could tell, was pissed off because he disagreed with my decision to loot these people, but I ignored him and started to look around for what would be useful.

  The armory was a sight to behold, a veritable treasure trove of war. Sections dedicated to swords, bows, and spears filled the room, along with a variety of tools for weapon maintenance. But the sight that held my attention was the barrels upon barrels of arrows. Hundreds? No, surely there were thousands, enough to fight off a siege. If an enemy dared to attack this fort, they’d be met with a relentless hail of arrows for every step taken.

  Besides the usual, they had my new favorite toy: a stick that lit up. I was thinking about calling them light sticks. Yep, now they were named ‘light sticks.’ I could tell that if I could get a skill in naming, I would have a high level.

  I began stuffing arrows into my bag, but quickly realized that the task was going to take forever. My next idea, tipping a barrel onto a table and letting the arrows fall into my bag, was a disaster. The barrel was too heavy to lift easily, and the arrows didn’t slide out as expected.

  Then it struck me that I could just put the whole barrel in my bag. Unfortunately, the opening of the bag wasn’t large enough. The thought, however, sparked another idea. I flipped my bag upside down, aimed it at the barrel, and thought ‘store arrows.’ Plunging my bag into the barrel, I was rewarded with a painful shower of arrows, but it worked. Even though my arm was peppered with cuts and scrapes, I repeated the process until all the arrows were collected. Rabbit found my antics hilarious and didn’t bother offering any advice.

  After the arrows, I gathered the repair equipment, light sticks, swords, and bows. There were about 30 of each, and they all seemed helpful. By this point, my bag was growing heavy, but I was glad I had collected the arrows before the heavier swords. I managed to grab four sets of armor, leaving the rest behind. It felt wasteful to leave so much behind, but you couldn’t take everything.

  Turning to the head guard’s room, I found Jack diligently sorting through papers and books on the desk. “What are you doing?” I asked with a teasing smile.

  “I’m putting everything of worth into that pile on the bed,” Jack said, pointing at the pile and not even looking up. I took my bag off and pushed the desk’s entire contents into it. I was hoping that the inkpot wouldn’t spill on any of the papers in whatever dimension it went to. I approached the bed, grabbed the top sheet, and shoved that with all the papers into my bag. On the floor was a small chest that I figured had the most secure documents inside, so I put my bag near that and shoved it in as well.

  Jack looked at me with barely concealed irritation. “Why did you make me waste my time?”

  “I didn’t make you waste your time,” I retorted. “I said we should grab important documents, and we did. We can sort it out later.”

  His response was a terse, “fine,” though it was clear he thought anything but. With our tasks in the armory and guard room completed, it was time to move on. We had a long way to go and plenty of guards to dispatch along the way.

  Before we set off, we took a moment to clean ourselves up. I grabbed a sheet from the guard’s bed and wiped off the dried blood. Jack did the same, but I noticed a fresh trickle of blood from a cut on his head. Summoning a healing potion from my bag, I handed it to him.

  “I’m fine,” Jack replied.

  “You’re fine, but we can’t have you walking around bleeding. It’s a dead giveaway we’ve been in a fight.” After a bit of coaxing, Jack took the potion and downed a quarter of it. The wound on his head slowly closed, though not as quickly as I’d hoped.

  After Jack’s wound had closed up completely, we didn’t waste another second. We walked back into the dimly lit hallway, our footsteps echoing eerily off the stone walls. I swung my cloak back around my shoulders, the familiar weight of the fabric providing a small measure of comfort. Jack fell into step beside me, his posture rigid, eyes alert.

  In one hand, I held out the bag of coins, the clinking sound of metal against metal barely audible. Jack took it, nodding curtly in response. We kept our voices low as we discussed our strategy, hushed whispers carried away by the dank, musty air. I adjusted my demeanor, adopting an air of arrogant confidence. I held my head high, looking down my nose at the empty hall ahead of us, doing my best to embody the persona of a snooty, entitled noble.

  However, despite our careful preparations, there was one glaring issue that could potentially give us away: the dried blood staining one arm of my cloak. It was a dark, damning spot against the otherwise pristine fabric. I hoped that with Jack walking close to me, his figure would cast a shadow over the stained part of my cloak, concealing it from the unsuspecting guards we were about to encounter.