I found Oliver on the map quickly. He’s still at the tavern, surrounded by NPCs from the town. I have no idea what he’s doing, but it seems he’s barely moved all day.

  But why would that be any difference for him, right? In life he never had to go anywhere or do anything if he didn’t want to, why should that be any different in afterlife? I grumble under my breath and march through the town towards the tavern.

  The sun is setting in the sky, painting it in amber hues and burning orange red slashes. It’s beautiful, and were I not feeling buried in the grey frustration in my head, I’d be able to enjoy it like I usually do. It was one of the first things I learned to do once I got past my whole position in this world: I took time to appreciate the world that had been made for us to play in. Honestly, they could have made the whole place a hellscape, but instead, the world around the town as far as the eye can see is like an idyllic painting by some quiet unseen artist.

  I’m sure there are places like that in the mortal world too…I just never got the chance to see them.

  Now and then, a few of the townsfolk that have been generated wave and say hello as I pass, as though they see me every day, and they haven’t only recently been generated to create a more lived in world for Oliver. I only ever met maybe a dozen or so of these guys in my time, ones that have useful roles that it was important for me to get to know to help the Player. I don’t wave back, just continue to stomp my way towards the Player who hasn’t been appreciating these guys either, sitting in the damn tavern the whole damn time.

  While my HUD lets me know where he is, and even who is around him (insofar as I can tell he’s got a bunch of NPCs in his vicinity), it doesn’t really tell me what’s going on with him. I’m his guide, not his bodyguard after all, though it does give me a heads up of his hit points, which are still full and in the green. So I can only imagine what this lazy, privileged piece of shit is up to. Most likely getting drunk and having the NPCs wait on his every whim, like some kind of harem of desperate serfs.

  I burst through the door of the tavern, but as my head glances back, I catch a shadow rushing towards me. I grab the heavy wooden door and stop it from slamming shut, letting Griff saunter into the room, face up, eyes half-lidded as he gives me a soft trill by way of thanks. Seems he’s following me around again, so I guess I’ve at least partially been forgiven for the not-feeding-him thing.

  I roll my eyes, and then turn to face the room, mouth open to let loose on the wayward trillionaire, only for the words to catch in my throat.

  Oliver is not doing what I was expecting at all. He’s not being waited on hand and foot, demanding the locals get him anything he desires. He isn’t even just getting wasted.

  No, instead, he’s sat on a stool on the far end of the room, holding a strange long-form stringed instrument, somewhere between a lyre and a guitar, and…playing for the locals. The NPCs are hanging on his every note, as he plays the instrument with an honestly surprising amount of skill. I mean, I don’t know why it’s a surprise, I suppose he had plenty of time to pick up an instrument in life and learn, but still. He’s actually really good.

  I can’t quite place the tune, but it sounds mildly familiar. Gentle, and almost folksy, but with a sense of melancholy to it that completely catches me off guard.

  I stand there, watching him play. Griff jumped up onto a table next to me, and does the same. We’re both enraptured by the surprise musician before us. He doesn’t sing, or even play it up for the crowd. Instead, his eyes are closed, and he leans into the instrument, like he’s feeling out the notes and bringing them out for us all to hear. It’s honestly quite hypnotic.

  In the ‘quiet’ of this unexpected musical interlude, I get a moment to look over my lapsed charge. I’m surprised to realise that, like myself, most of his features match how he looked in life. Once I realised who he was, I remembered seeing his face on news posts and on social media now and then, and his new half-ogre form sticks to the sweeping general lines of his appearance. But of course now his skin is green, a deep, dark green in places, like towards his hairline, easing up into lighter shades as the skin stretches to the tip of his nose. His lips are maybe a little fuller, but mainly because his lower jaw now houses two small tusks instead of the corresponding teeth. But they’re not huge, barely breaking past the tip of his lips, only really noticeable as his lips part.

  He’s wearing a brown, suede like vest shirt, the arms torn off, revealing his own subtly brawny arms. As a half-ogre, he has impressive musculature, but he’s not a huge, massive bulk. Still, Oliver’s arms, cradling the instrument as his hands go expertly to work over it, are truly on display now. As he plays, the subtle twitching and movement of his muscles dance under the skin, revealing a very…distracting display. He looks like someone who is at home at the gym, but doesn’t live his whole life for it.

  I gulp hard, and shake my head. I need to focus. This guy has been wasting his time, and I have a duty to get him to…well, wherever the heck he’s going.

  He finishes the song and the room erupts into applause and cheers, causing Griff to startle and jump down to hide behind my legs. I watch the man smile and wave as cries for an encore begin, but he makes a joke about his fingers needing time to rest, and before I know it, the barmaid passes him a flagon of ale for him to take a break with. I wait for the crowd to start dispersing, each NPC taking a moment to praise his talent before moving off. As he finally finds himself alone, reclining into a chair by a table next to his impromptu stage, I make my move.

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  “So is this what you’ve been doing instead of playing the game?” I say as I approach the opposite side of the table.

  “Well, I’ve not really known what I’m supposed to be doing, and it is my afterlife, right? I figured why not just relax instead of meeting the daily grind every morning.” He makes a motion to offer me a seat opposite him. I stay standing.

  “That’s not what you’re here for. This isn’t your afterlife, this is to determine your afterlife. Because I guess you weren’t doing enough of that daily grind while you were alive for anyone to figure out where you should go,” I let that drop, crossing my arms.

  Oliver shows a pinched expression on his face which I can’t quite read, almost like I touched a nerve briefly, or an old wound? Lazily, he blinks his eyes and then sits up, leaning on the table.

  “Look, I don’t know what I did to you before to piss you off, but can’t we just—”

  “What you did to me is the same thing your company did to hundreds of thousands, but there’s no point caring about that now. Not like you did much when you were alive,” I snap back, trying to keep my voice clipped and to the point. I’m already frustrated that this is not going how I expected. “Forget that. It doesn’t matter now, does it. You need to be training, so that you can get on with questing and finding your challenge and doing whatever it is you need to do to go wherever you’re supposed to go.”

  “Well, I haven’t really been given much instruction on that as yet, as it happens,” Oliver says, tilting his head. It’s a criticism, undoubtedly pointed, but he doesn’t say it with any malice. Just stating fact. Unfortunately, it technically is fact.

  “Right,” I harrumph. “I’m sorry for taking my time on that. But setting up shop in a bar and playing for coins from the crowds isn’t going to cut it.”

  “I’ve not been making anyone pay for it…” he mumbles, and for a second, it feels like I’m scolding a child.

  And it strikes me as weird. A trillionaire, not asking for money when he provides a service, whether it was asked for or not? That doesn’t seem right. Maybe it’s my biased evaluation, but it seems the reason the rich get and stay rich is because they never do anything for free, not really, or not for long.

  “You haven’t? Then why have you been doing…this,” I gesture to all around me.

  Oliver shrugs. “Dunno. Just passes the time. I like this fantasy shit, and I’m just enjoying the vibes, you know?” At this moment he sounds like every hippy cliche you can imagine, and even that finds a way to get under my skin.

  “Yeah, that’s a real mighty quest that.”

  “Well, you tell me then, what am I supposed to be doing?” He glares at me, his voice not rising, but I’m sensing anger there.

  “Quests! Missions! You’re supposed to get off your arse and have a bloody adventure! I dunno, go hunting trolls, or some long lost treasure, free a maiden from a dragon guarded watchtower, maybe there’s a magic ring you gotta throw in a volcano, I dunno!” I throw my hands in the air in exasperation.

  “Really? It could really be that derivative?” Oliver’s eyebrow arches and he chuckles.

  I sigh, finally yanking the chair in front of me out from the table and slumping into it.

  “Honestly, maybe. The Board aren’t really known for being incredibly creative,” I glance up and squint my eyes, hoping the barb didn’t go unnoticed. “It’s often all along the same themes, like an image of fantasy that’s been traced over again and again, one little detail different at a time.”

  “Huh…once you’ve seen one isekai you’ve seen ‘em all, huh?”

  Now my intrigue is piqued. “You’re a weeb?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, leaning back again. I notice that he has a few cushions, likely provided by his admirers. “I’ve done a bit of anime binging in my time though. You?”

  “…I’m a casual fan, at best. More of a gamer, I guess. Was a gamer, that is.”

  “Cool, me too,” Oliver actually brightens.

  “Okay,” I shake my head, again annoyed to be going off task. “Then you know that sitting around isn’t doing shit, and you need to get moving. We need to get you trained, so that when your quest comes along you’re ready and won’t immediately get bumped off into oblivion.”

  “Wait, that can happen?”

  “So I’m told. I’ll never get to find out,” I say, letting that lie.

  “Why not?”

  I look at the half-ogre, determined not to let my armour slip. “We’re not here about me. We’re here about you. And working out just how and when we will get you off to wherever you have to go.”

  Oliver for a split second looks stricken, but he covers it up almost as fast as it appeared. He nods slowly.

  “Okay, cool. Well, how do you want to do this?”

  “Tomorrow morning, 8am. Meet me at the town gates. We’re going hunting. We’ll see how you manage navigating the local terrain, maybe some light combat practice. Are you used to the menus yet? What class are you anyway?”

  That’s when I finally looked into his Player stats. I didn’t bother before because I was first trying to ignore this whole thing to begin with, and second it felt rude to do before actually talking to him properly at all.

  “You have a subclass? You shouldn’t be able to get a subclass until level 25! You’re a Barbarian?” I say startled. While it’s not an unusual class for an ogre race of any kind, Oliver’s airs did not give this as a possibility at all. Between his laid back attitude and the instrument, I half expected him to be a bloody bard now if I didn’t know he was a Druid for his main class. “Wait, why is your Charisma base so high if you’re a Barbarian?”

  “Dunno. They said because I had a lot of followers in the real world—”

  “Of course,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Because you were an influencer, you get a boost on that stat, a strength and constitution boost from your class choice, and a hefty purse and jump on levels right from the off.” I notice his level again. “Wait, you haven’t levelled up at all since getting here? You’ve really just been goofing around in here?”

  “Not just here. I’ve seen most of the town by now, actually. And I found a store that allowed Players to respec for a fee, and well, I had that initial coin bonus, and I figured I’d…buy the subclass early,” he says sheepishly.

  “Right. Of course pay to win is a feature. Any other perks I should know about?”

  “I—” Griff finally jumps up onto the table, and moves toward the lazy half-ogre, butting his head on the man again and miaowing. Oliver returned the animal sounds, and the pair hit off into a back and forth of purrs, miaows and low growling, guttural sounds for a minute. Eventually, they both turned and looked at me.

  “Well, the Animal Speaking you already knew…” Oliver grins, the tips of his tusks showing as he shrugs.

  “Fine,” I stand abruptly, and turn on my heel, heading for the door. “8am at the town gates. I’ll show you what I can, though at this rate, you bloody have most of it squared away. We’ll get you a little action so we can say it’s done and you can go off and do your thing.”

  I reach the door when he finally calls after me. “Cool. And, uh, your name was again?”

  I look over my shoulder, scowling at the man and my grifflet, who remains on the table with him.

  “Russell. Don’t be late, Player.”