Going back out into the rain was a mistake.

  Now I was fucking miserable. My eagerness to keep the ball rolling and make something of the day had just led me to getting soaked. Hair sodden and my shirt was stuck to my skin. The clouds didn’t even have the decency to shed the rain in one quick burst - instead; it continued to pelt the desert at a constant light pace.

  After five minutes, I reminded Sally to ask Richard about the repopulation warning because of the broken bunker, and told her where I was heading. She hadn’t responded, which was… not helping my mood.

  All I kept thinking about was that fireplace in the tavern. That warmth. Once I could determine it to be a place of safety, I’d bring the others there soon. Having access to Richard was helpful, but we all deserved a proper bed once in a while. Especially Bernie.

  I swept my wet hair from my face as I stepped over a particularly sharp ridge and paused to gather my breath at the sight before me.

  An actual whole-ass village.

  Something that looked rather ominous with how dark the sky was getting, as there were no lanterns or other light sources within it. At least two-dozen small buildings sat clumped together in a loose circle. A few near the center were slightly bigger, and I imagined they would be either storage or communal meeting buildings.

  I brought Threadcutter out and scoured the scenery for any sign of movement or that something was amiss. From a few hundred feet off, it just looked abandoned. In a different way than the motel. Perhaps it was the scale of it. If the village was populated at some point, then there could have been close to a hundred people living there.

  For it to be devoid of life was uncomfortable. Like I had just stepped into a horror movie. I was starting to believe that there was more to this System infecting the world than just pockets of confused and brain-dead monsters. Richard had mentioned phases, and part of me wondered if the sporadic areas of encounters would slowly bleed towards being an actual fantasy world analogue. How much could they permanently change Earth?

  I decided I’d start worrying about that once I came across a similar village that was actually populated. The people at the tavern didn’t seem to be anything more than NPCs, but I didn’t…

  My eyes switched away from the scenery ahead to a notification in the STAR.

  [You are now an enemy of the Redleg Orcs]

  As if I didn’t have enough on my plate, the monsters that had run from the outpost must have let their boss know that we had killed them. They seemed rather aggressive anyway, so being their enemy probably wouldn’t change much. I’d have to ask Sally if she had the same message once she started responding to me.

  Approaching the edge of the village, it didn’t go past my notice that I had given up on running from responsibility. It had only taken two days of forced cooperation and several near-death experiences, but my go-to choice of fleeing my problems hadn’t been such an active thought the more I continued this new life. Perhaps only having the small bunker full of people I needed to care about helped ease me into being less selfish.

  I had even decided to go straight to this drab place in the bad weather, instead of taking things easy for a bit.

  Or maybe I was running from the chance to be comfortable, to not give myself false hope?

  Either way, I needed more power. Both skill and item gain had slowed to a near halt today—aside from the pirate loot—and with the afternoon washing away, I had little choice but to keep moving. A bad idea to go somewhere unknown so late in the day, but staying overnight at the tavern was an option, as much as I’d like to go back and make sure that…

  //Sally: Will ask him in a minute.

  //Sally: He has just returned and…

  //Sally: Well, you’ll see in a second! :3

  I raised an eyebrow, confused as to what she was on about. Also slightly annoyed that my thoughts kept getting interrupted by-

  Bark.

  My muscles tensed up at the noise, and I turned on my feet at the sudden sound. Looking down, I could barely believe my eyes.

  Bucky.

  He gave me a brief yap as his tail wagged uncontrollably. I kneeled, and he jumped all over me in an attempt to lick my face.

  “How did you...?” I began, trying to push him away. “Did you lick up that System-juice and get powerful?”

  I focused on him, and some details popped up into my STAR.

  [Animal Companion]

  [Bucky, Dog (Level 1)]

  [Inventory Slots: 3]

  [Equipment Slots: 3]

  [Skills: Faithful Return 1, Companionship 1]

  “Wow, that’s all new. You didn’t do this on purpose, did you?” The dog was too hyped up and wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying, but I was mostly sure he hadn’t known that lapping up the blue liquid would arrive at this. “Sit,” I commanded.

  He wriggled off the last of his overflowing energy and then sat, looking up at me expectantly. I held my hand over his head and six boxes appeared, floating above him in a grid. Three for items I could store on him, and three for things he could wear. A very cut-down version of what I had, but Richard must have patched together parts of the STAR to make it work for the dog.

  Faithful Return allowed Bucky to teleport to my location once per day - which explained how he got here. Companionship increased my Morale by 1 and added passive HP regeneration by 10% during downtime.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I was hoping for something that would turn him invincible, but at least he couldn’t talk to me. He even gave me a Morale boost, so… having him around was a boost to my power, not just my mental health.

  “That’s a good boy,” I told him. “Almost makes me forget about how terrible the rain is. We’re hunting a mystery monster in this village, so let’s see if we can get you some new skills too, huh?”

  Bucky panted at me, but otherwise just looked at me blankly.

  Good enough. I took three health potions and put them in his Inventory. Judging by his continued gaze, he didn’t know how or was unable to use the STAR himself. As much as I’d like to knock on Richard’s head for the user guide to my new companion, I had bigger fish to fry.

  He fell into step with me as I brought my axe back up and stepped over to the side of the closest building. I placed my hand on the wet stonework. Roughly built, wooden beam frames, and thatched roofs. Western fantasy was often euro-centric, and I could easily imagine some farmer peasants living here. All it was missing was a windmill.

  And any sign of life.

  I edged along the wall to the window and peered inside. Darkness, and the gloom from outside did little but pick up some long edges of wooden furniture inside. Once again, I pushed the wet hair from my face. “I’d better not get a cold from this,” I murmured to the dog.

  He had no input.

  More fool me to get ill rather than just beaten to death. That said… as I made it to the corner of the first cottage and caught sight of the road going into Hammergate proper, there was no sign of fighting.

  No corpses or blood. No broken terrain, and the road itself looked as though it only had light regular traffic. Everything pasted with a sheen of damp precipitation, but not enough to cloud my vision too much. My eyes were focused on the windows of the row of houses ahead of me, more shadowed pits hiding who knew what. Well, it was my job to find out.

  Rather than wander idly, I had already devised a plan on the way over.

  First stop—assuming I wasn’t accosted by the mystery beforehand—was either the town hall or other official building. Unless the attack was something instant, then there should be records of complaints or missing people posters somewhere. After that, I’d go to any other place that seemed unique. Shops and the like. If still no luck after all of that, then I’d need to start going door to door.

  I was sure by then something would come out and make my day worse before I had the chance to do that.

  It would be nice to look around for loot. After watching the waitress vacuum up every item possible from the motel, I considered cluttering my own Inventory with everything I could get my hands on. Things could come in use when I least expected it.

  As we made our way onto the first cobbled street that led to the village square, an eerie feeling crept its way down my spine.

  There was something very wrong here, and for a brief moment, I wondered if I had stepped into bigger trouble than I had bargained for. There had been no level indication for the Quest - so hopefully I wasn’t about to get jumped by a level 10 elite, or worse.

  I glanced at Bucky, who was sniffing along the edge of one of the houses. With the rainfall, it would be hard to pick up any tracks. He seemed to find some interest, however. I didn’t have the energy for a fight where the houses were actual monsters, so I started internally praying that wasn’t the case. At this stage, I knew better than to make that declaration out loud.

  While the STAR might be tipping the scales in my favor, I didn’t trust the Roach System to not fuck me over at any given opportunity. I knew what mimics were. Expecting them should hopefully keep them at bay. At the risk of drawing attention to us, I stepped over to the house Bucky was investigating and swung my axe at the door.

  With a crack, the blade embedded into the wood, and the door opened easily - as it wasn’t even latched. It didn’t bleed, and the house didn’t suddenly stand up on hundreds of small legs. Other than the patter of light rain, the area fell into silence once again.

  The prospect of some dry land had me ditching my previous plans, and I pushed the door open fully to step inside. Bucky followed suit, almost getting under my feet as he trotted in eagerly. I hoped it was just to avoid the rain rather than because he knew something was in here. I'd had quite enough of stumbling into corpses or finding words scrawled across the walls.

  My eyes adjusted to the gloom inside just as the dog continued to pitter patter across the floorboards, out of this small dining room and into the kitchen area. I swore under my breath as I readied my axe and followed him along.

  The house interior looked just as I had expected. Simple and rustic. A few shelves containing trinkets or useful household items. In the middle of the plain table sat a flower pot, the stems holding up the closed petals looking rather droopy. Nothing was out of place. No sign of fighting or anything suspicious.

  Which made it incredibly suspicious.

  I stepped through the open doorway to see that Bucky had stopped at the end of the small kitchen area where a fireplace sat inert. He huffed and pawed at the charcoal and soot, not wanting to make too much noise, but clearly after something.

  Given his track record of slurping up unknown substances, I gave him a sharp hiss to let him know I didn’t approve as I stepped over. He paused and waddled backward, looking up at me as I kneeled beside him.

  “What’d you find, bud?” I murmured. It didn’t look like much at present, but I rested Threadcutter on the floor and reached into the cold pile of burned remnants.

  The dog wagged his tail as I did so, which is probably one of the only reasons I didn’t give up immediately. Other than getting my hands covered in dark soot, there wasn’t much in here other than the occasional lump of…

  I wavered as I touched something cooler within the filth. Gingerly, I took hold of it and brought it out. Small, round in shape and flat. It was a coin made of silver, or similar. Even with how charred it appeared, it didn’t take but a moment to rub it on my slacks to clean it to a reasonable degree.

  “How odd,” I said. “For a System that only uses gold coins, this is different.”

  Bucky didn’t seem to have a viewpoint either way, and it was probably a waste of energy for me to speak aloud to him… but there was some part of it keeping me sane. Or at least the illusion of sanity.

  I held the coin up and turned it in the brief light coming through the window.

  There was an intricate pattern around the edges on both sides, but I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be interweaving ropes or snakes. One side had the skull of an ox embossed on it, while the opposite had either an equals sign, or the roman numeral for two. If this was the key to a mathematical puzzle, I would not be happy.

  [Unknown Coin]

  No description or smarmy note from the System. I looked down at Bucky as he returned an expectant gaze. There was a tiny notification hovering over his head, so I expanded it.

  [Item Tracker 1]

  [Increased chance of finding valuable items]

  His first skill acquisition. I felt a little proud of him, and probably would have rewarded him for it if I wasn’t about to shiver from my wet clothes cooling off. We needed to keep moving. I gave the coin a squeeze before allowing it to go into my Inventory.

  “If this is an important part of the Quest, I’m going to-”

  A shadow went across the window, casting a brief beam of darkness through the kitchen.

  I gripped my axe tighter and turned, not seeing anything outside due to the weather. Slowly, I stepped back toward the dining room, Bucky at my side.

  At the threshold, I paused.

  The pair of us stood and watched as the front door silently closed itself shut.