For some reason, Rafael Kingsley found himself helping the girl who'd once kicked his head in drag a golem towards an unknown camp. He did not know how things had ended up this way. Since when was his life not his own?

And the other girl? The supposed princess. She was walking beside him and cheerily yapping on. Rafe noticed how she frowned at him every time he looked away from her.

His strength stat wasn't high enough for this shit. They just didn't know it. They thought he was a level sixty-nine blacksmith, and while crafters weren't normally fighters, strength as well as dexterity were stats blacksmiths were famous for. Rafe didn't even have the hidden dexterity stat. Yet.

He did not have the dexterity stat and his strength stat probably was even lower than the mage girl's. One of the reasons he was forced to have low stats was to learn to squeeze every ounce of potential from them though, so it was not a bad thing per se. It was terrible at that moment.

He had to carefully apply his Heavy blow skill at intervals, and he could feel a pressure in his soul he hadn't felt since that day he'd first entered the tower. When he'd abused the skill in the first room. Only, now he was forcing it to stay active a little longer than it was designed to.

Heavy blow was designed to boost his strength stat at the point of impact of a physical attack. But Rafe's skills were cracked, their structures stretched out to maybe accomplish more than they normally would. He had found this out in the aura training floor of the training tower.

It had taken him a long time, but he had finally gotten an opportunity to test out what he could do with another of his cracked skills. He had to think creatively, to see the full picture. For example, he had no idea how he would apply the crack on his Dash skill. But it was one of his favourites, so once he got the chance, he'd have to find out.

And there were his passive skills to consider too.

Unfortunately, he did not have time to experiment right now. He had had three weeks of nothing to do and no one around, but he had squandered it. He had been moping and still hoping to find a way home. Now he had lost his chance. And while the girls had seen him fight, they thought he was just a brute using his profession's famed strength and his hammer to gracefully kill the beasts.

In the time they'd been walking, his mana had recharged enough to use his status display skill once.

Name: Filoria Aquamarine Benhaven

Race: Elemenoid

Class: Water Dancer (Epic lvl. 72)

Strongest skill: Ice sword (Epic lvl. 45) Allows the user to add an aura of cold to her sword during combat.

Strongest stat: Agility (172)

Notable achievement: Killed a peak F grade beasts at level fifteen. (+15 to all stats, better class evolution options)

He couldn't identify Helare yet, but it was something he was going to do eventually. He needed to study the foe. According to the importance the quest system was putting on this Helare girl, she was going to be very close to him for the next two months. Of that he was sure.

Filoria though? Yeah, he was not worried about her in the least. For some reason, she seemed to regret almost killing him. The little he had seen of her - of them both, to be honest - had him convinced she was not one to readily apologise. Therefore he was reasonably sure they'd not be that close to each other.

The camp was a sprawling settlement nestled in a wide valley between four hills big enough Rafe would call them semi-mountains. It was on one of these large hills the mining activities were settled.

Helare had told him all about it. Forced it down his head, to be honest. She'd talked about the merchant the system had provided, and how she believed he was swindling them.

How a whole world had no blacksmiths, Rafe had no idea. Liam had once told him Elemonoid people were more predisposed to mage classes. It was a thing their race enforced on them. But from what Helare had said to Filoria before, and based on her sword and the way she'd almost killed him all that time ago, she was no mage. At least she was no simple mage. Her class was ambiguous about it.

Entering the camp, Rafe realised he was not the only non-elemenoid there. They were not in good condition though, the demons. And there were none blue haired elemenoids too.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Rafe watched the way everyone stared at them as they entered. The blue haired with reverence. The demons with loathing, though mostly that was directed at Filoria for some curious reason. The non-blue haired elemenoids they passed lowered their heads, not looking directly at Rafe or his party. Now that he looked at them, their clothing might look similar, but it was of lower quality than those of the blue haired.

That was rather curious, but Rafe kept his face blank. A few blue haired officials - with differing shades, those closer to Helare's pure shade obviously higher ranked - came to make nonsensical reports Rafe couldn't understand a word of.

He would make a terrible spy, he acknowledged. Blessed with access to all the knowledge he needed, Rafe had been trying to tune Helare out during their hours long trek. Thinking about the trek, Rafe also noticed the girls did not have storage skills or items. Or maybe they did, but didn't want the golem getting in there. Or they couldn't fit it in. So many questions. Not enough answers. Well, he had a leaking pipe of knowledge walking beside him.

"Hey, Helare…hmm, the demons? And the other elemenoi—"

"Shhhh," the girl interrupted violently, jumping up and covering his mouth with her hands.

Rafe was surprised, to say the least. And she was too close, and they were in public, walking down a make shift walking path in the makeshift mine settlement. It was set up like the army camp Rafe had been in when he'd first entered the Skyholm legacy trial.

Anyway, Rafe was surprised, so he dropped the golem. He heard Filoria curse but he was busy trying to get some distance. He stumbled as he tried walking backwards. He fell. Alone.

Some small part of him had been hoping he'd fall with Helare in a tumble of limbs. With an internal groan, he turned the thought away, disgusted.

Now that he thought about it, he had been in a magical trial world for thirty years and kept himself pure, yet he hadn't developed those promised wizardry abilities. His other abilities did not count. That was not magic. He was the one who didn't want to focus on magic yet, but still. Maybe he'd be very talented at it. Maybe he'd get a spell to one shot every single person who'd had a nice highschool experience when he returned to Earth.

Helare stood over him, looking at his mouth with a warning. It was clear what her message was. Be careful what you say.

The last time he'd seen her like this, she was reprimanding Filoria. Rafe felt uncomfortable with her weird personality shift, but he could do nothing about it for now.

When he was walking with them again, and after Helare had been stiffly looking around for a bit, she turned to him with her serious expression. Her eyes were - he didn't want to say cold, although it was close - authoritative.

"That word is taboo on this world. It is derogatory," she said, her voice low, stilted.

The word possibly being Elemenoids. There was probably some cultural reason. Rafe had only ever been to one other planet except Earth, and he hadn't had close relations with people from other races. He did remember Jasmine being salty about her race though.

"Our people are called the Ma'la. That is our race. Not some other word foisted onto us by the system and this damned multiverse!"

There was a bit of vitriol there. Obviously the system was not a universally liked concept, as evidenced by Devila, and Rafe as well, recently. Still, there was a story there that Rafe had to make sure to get. It was probably best if he didn't get it from Helare. Somehow, he'd said the one thing that could turn off miss little sunshine mode indefinitely. He kind of regretted it, but mostly he wished he could have said it earlier.

There was a tent pitched away from everyone else's. It was larger than most, though there was a larger and more ostentatious tent Rafe thought for sure belonged to Helare. There was also something different about this tent. Like it was not of this world. Meaning it was not of this planet, probably. It just didn't fit with the others.

Rafe remembered Helare saying something about the golem's origins. Some kind of system merchant, if he was remembering right.

"Oh my, Lady Helare. You're here again, how may I …another one?!" the tiny, jade green, bearded man asked, adjusting adorably petite manacles.

"Yes, Hestus. I'm thinking we need a bit more results. What in all that's holy is happening to our dungeon?"

"Might I suggest a budge…"

"You know my reports won't reach where they need to. You know there is not a thing I can do about the budget!"

"Well then… I can certainly try my best, but this will be hardwork. And I'm burning bridges with people I've worked with for a long time."

The little creature wrung his hands, his eyes fluttering around in a show of nerves.

"But the seas are bountiful," Helare interrupted his fidgeting.

"Hmm? Oh yes, the seas are bountiful indeed. Ah, I should return to—"

"I didn't just say that as a platitude this time. I have here with me someone who is a blacksmith. If we can sell a few weapons instead of ore, don't you think we could get a little more pocket change for ourselves?"

Somehow Rafe felt like an object being appraised for the next few minutes. The merchant spoke of how it was going to be impossible to make any reasonable money with only one smith, to which Helare replied with his level. It was rubbing Rafe the wrong way, all told. It was like he wasn't there. And he was starting to draw parallels between himself and the demons and the subservient other Elemenoids he'd seen.

"He has insights. You know how insights are important for a crafter, much more than a fighter."

Yeah, trying to make himself as high a level as possible to avoid suspicion had come back to bite Rafe in the ass. Still, he did not like the general direction this all was going. Maybe he needed to turn tail before things got bad.

"With my enchanters, we can make something here."

"But he is only one smith," the little man complained.

Helare shrugged. "He already learned a few insights. It won't be impossible for him to learn one more. One to increase the speed of his work, if necessary. Isn't that right?"

How the hell was he supposed to answer that? And she was still giving him that mildly condescending eye. Did she think him some kind of tool? Was that okay?! Was that the norm here?

Had he just sold himse— no! Had the system just sold him into slavery?!

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