(Book 1 Complete!) Side Quest [Isekai / LitRPG]

Logan stood in the inn's private room, adjusting the strap of his satchel. With no safe way to scale the rock walls in the darkness or to make it down the bottomless pit, he had spent the night in the cave, although his improved Endurance kept him from being too stiff when he woke.

That, though, had been more comfortable than this.

He had spent a long time last night debating what to share with the others when he explained why he had missed the scheduled meeting time at the inn last night. He felt trapped by the weight of the secrets of his race and his life on earth, and it didn't help that he couldn't ask direct questions about the System. And now, if he didn't get answers, it might doom a whole lot of people.

His decision was a calculated risk that might come back to hurt him, but the alternative seemed worse. Whatever the gobles were planning would affect everybody in the Fold, and that included him anyway.

Just moments earlier, he had explained his encounter in the Cave of Cursed Music and the attack with the gobles. They all knew the Boundary passed through the cave, so when they asked him how his story could possibly be true, he decided to take a leap of faith.

"Remember under Gnashridge's inn when I disappeared and you couldn't find me?"

"It's a bit difficult to forget," said Cassandra, "considering the shape you were in when you finally reappeared…" She didn't sound judgmental, just curious as to where Logan was going with this.

"Well that's the first time I realized I can pass the Boundary."

After a few moments of silence, Cassandra spoke again. "Logan, all denizens of the Fold are confined within the Boundary. You've mentioned you have a Legendary skill, which while possible is still rather unusual. But this…"

"That's kind of the thing, though. Denizens of the Fold, you say, can't pass the Boundary." He took a deep breath. "But I'm from somewhere else."

Whether their silence was out of courtesy or just because they thought he was crazy, he didn't know. But he explained how he had woken up in a cave instead of his bed on earth. He didn't say everything, but he also needed their trust more than ever right now. And he had to hope his high Perception meant something, especially after every scenario of this conversation he had racked his brain over last night.

He left out Mariv's and Razor's involvement, as well as the dragon egg. Those weren't his secrets to share. He also left out his hidden race, figuring it was probably best to drip this stuff out slowly anyway. But he did describe his life before, and when they finally started asking questions, he answered them.

"No skills?" asked Bromlin. "How does anybody improve their axe wielding?"

Logan chuckled at the dwarf's straightforward astonishment. "We have these rooms where you can throw axes at targets. But most people don't walk around with battleaxes because we also don't have monsters."

The dwarf grunted and shook his head. "Surely the dwarves in your world at least know how to use a pickaxe to mine gemstones."

"Er, we don't really have dwarves, either." He corrected himself. "That is, we have people with dwarfism. But they live on the surface just like anyone else. No gnomes, no elves… just boring old humans without magic."

"That definitely explains why you looked so rough and confused in the woods," said Senna.

Others chimed in, commenting on how little Logan knew about skills and some of the most commonplace terms. If not for the urgency of the situation, Logan might have taken offense that they believed him mainly because of his proven ignorance.

Alden folded his arms. "Very well. That may explain how you passed the Boundary. But let's go back to the gobles. You fought them all off just to fetch musical instruments for some bards so you could get that medallion?"

The medallion in question was still in Logan's palm from when he had pulled it out to start this whole story. He tucked it away. "From the drummer and fiddler, yes. The lute-player gave me this," Logan said, pulling a metallic triangle out of his bag.

"Lutenist," Alden said.

"Huh?"

"You said drummer and fiddler, not drum-player and fiddle-player. So why not say lutenist? Do they not have this very common term in your faraway home?"

"Oh. I didn't know that was the word."

"Bah," said Bromlin. "Lutist works too."

"Or lut-a-nist," added Cassandra.

"Okay, yes, a lutanist! Anyway, do you know if gobles can communicate with each other from afar?"

As Cassandra explained the gobles' ability to communicate through a shared hive mind, Alden reached forward without asking and pulled Logan's wrist closer, examining the triangle. Logan didn't stop him, though he tensed slightly at the invasion of personal space.

It's description read a simple percussion instrument, and it didn't have any enchantments. Still, Alden leaned in further, and Logan realized he was trying to peek into the bag now resting beside him. The faint shimmer of the interdimensional storage field clung to the opening, masking the items within. Logan tightened his grip on the strap. He hadn't taken anything valuable beyond the instruments. But apparently, Alden didn't trust that.

After a long moment, Alden let go of his wrist, brushing it aside like it had left a mark.

"Well," said Logan, "I was worried about that. Since you confirmed this hive mind thing, I think we're in trouble. The way it sounded, something bad is about to happen in Gnashridge Heights."

"How bad?" Bromlin asked.

Logan shrugged. "Bad enough."

Senna gave a low whistle. "I knew a town that was overrun by a goble clan led by a warlock. It wasn't pretty. You said they have their own warlock too, yeah?"

After Logan nodded, Senna shook her head. "Even with the defenses Gnashridge Heights has raised, I doubt they'll stand a chance."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

After a span of silence, Logan spoke. "You mean 'we,' right?" The silence held. "'We', not 'they'. Right?"

Cassandra watched the table, Senna fiddled with her bag strap, and even Bromlin pursed his lips.

Alden finally answered. "If Gnashridge Heights falls, it would be best that we were not there when it does."

Logan blinked, and Alden shrugged.

"I don't wish them any ill. But we came to this region for opportunity, not our own senseless deaths. I don't think you realize how bad a goble incursion can be." He looked to the others. "I say we head north. The Life affinity can still be attained up there, even if there are fewer chances of monster appearances."

Senna coughed softly and reached down, slowly, hand brushing against her satchel like she'd already made her decision.

Logan's eyes darted from one to the next. "What? Cassandra. Bromlin. You can't be serious."

"It brings me no pleasure, lad, but Alden's right. You don't temper steel before it's forged."

"But what about everybody else in Gnashridge? If the guild isn't strong enough on its own, it needs help."

Cassandra took a deep breath. "Yes, Logan. It does. And they will post on the guild boards. Help will come, but many of the guild members stationed in Gnashridge haven't even ascended. I doubt they have enough skills between them to handle a goble raid, especially if it's an entire tribe."

Logan stared at her for a long second, then broke into a sudden laugh. "Then let's help them get more skills! I almost forgot."

He walked to the table to use it as cover as he pretended to reach into his bag. Really, he opened his interdimensional storage ripple and retrieved the bag of cores. Then, he dumped the contents out and easily fifty brilliant orbs spilled onto the table, some rolling off.

"How many cores does it normally take for someone to learn a skill?"

"Careful with those!" Alden gasped as he caught one midair. There was something sharp in his glower, and Logan didn't understand it. If there was any way to make the guy like him, he would have assumed it was showing him all the cores he had just revealed.

Cassandra jumped back from the table in surprise, her jaw fallen open. "Wh—Where did you get all these?"

"Wow…" said Senna under her breath, at which Bromlin merely nodded in stunned silence.

"It was in that big treasure room, too." Since everybody was occupied with gawking at the haul, Logan continued. "I wasn't about to consume any without having you all there with me. If we get back to Gnashridge Heights, won't this help?"

Whether or not he convinced them to join him, he had to get back. He dreaded meeting Razor's eyes when he gave her the news that he had dropped the last of her kind's egg into an abyssal pit, but his quest to save her people's heritage hadn't grayed out or shown as failed. If anybody would know how to handle the next step, it was her or Mariv.

Alden scoffed. "How do we know you didn't have twice this many cores?"

Cassandra dismissed Alden's inquiry with a wave of her hand as she and the others helped Logan secure and re-bag the balance of stray cores. "Logan, yes, this might help the guild." Her brows crimped. "But that doesn't change our own lack of preparedness to—"

A tremor shook the room, followed by bloodcurdling shrieks from outside.

They all rushed to the room's one tall window and smashed their faces to its pane.

"What is it?" asked Bromlin, who Logan was only dimly aware of as a force jumping at his waist.

"I think," Logan whispered, "it's the start of that danger I was talking about."

Even from their sheltered position indoors, the air itself seemed to contract, like a great inhalation before an earth-shattering scream. Then came the rumble. A deep, seismic groan made the worn planks at their feet shudder.

Outside the inn, jagged fissures split the land like veins of shadow, gaping wounds torn into the terrain. Each one stretched at least fifteen feet across, their edges crumbling as if the earth itself had rotted from the inside out. A pitch-black abyss churned within, not empty but hungry.

Then, the darkness rose.

It didn't spew like smoke or unfurl like mist. It coiled, tendrils of inky energy slithering upward as though seeking something to ensnare. The tendrils twisted unnaturally, trailing upward despite the wind, despite gravity itself. It carried an echo of something familiar. Not in the sense of cult-induced connection, but merely in recognition. A part of him understood the way the energy moved, the way it bled into the world like veins through flesh. It was the same sensation he had felt when wielding the Void Affinity, when Unrelenting Hunt had flooded his senses, or when Null Pulse had pulled against reality itself to launch him forward.

This was an unbridled breach of Void energy far beyond mere mana, and it was coming from somewhere deep within the earth's marrow.

Logan scooped up the bag of cores and tossed them into his standard storage space, and as a group, they hurried out of the inn's private room and into the open air.

They sprinted along the town's outskirts, weaving through narrow alleys and dodging startled townsfolk who had emerged to witness the growing calamity. The dense Void wall loomed, rising higher by the second.

Logan sagged. "There's no way back to Gnashridge, is there?"

"You still want to go back?" Frustration filled Alden's tone as he huffed.

Logan pressed a fist to his forehead. "I have my reasons, Alden." He just needed some quiet to think.

Senna put a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry buddy, but I don't think it's happening. We're not getting through that."

Meditate!

Everything slowed. The churning darkness rising from the Void resembled a million blobs of a night-dark lava lamp rising ever higher. His thoughts stretched outward, and the distractions peeled away.

The abyssal pit in the Cave of Cursed Music.

The egg that had fallen down it, but had to be safe still.

The chasm beneath Gnashridge, and the massive pillar of mana that descended into the unfathomable depths.

The special stones the gobles had used, charged against the Dragon Sage statue's gemstone eyes, to pass through the Boundary.

His mind latched onto that last one.

Logan's eyes snapped open.

"I know a way back," he said. "The gobles all had totems. They used them to pass through the Boundary. And their bodies are still in the Cave of Cursed Music. If I can charge their totems using the same method, you can cross the Boundary just as easily as me."

Alden let out an exasperated sigh. "For the last time, there is no we."

Logan shrugged and started walking the direction of the cave, even though he wasn't entirely eager to return so quickly. "Then I'll go alone."

"Logan," Cassandra pleaded.

"You don't have to come," Logan replied. "But I am going back."

Senna and Bromlin shared a look, but it was Alden, neck cording with frustration, who erupted.

"What," Alden shouted, "is it you're not telling us?" Despite being five-feet distant from Logan, Alden's spittle smacked his cheeks. "You are still holding something back!"

Logan paused and met his gaze, but didn't waver. "I am," he admitted. "Not because I don't trust you, but because it's not my place. Really, I appreciate the help you've all provided me, but I need to get back to Mariv and Razor."

"Razor," Alden repeated slowly. "The chicken coop assistant?"

"Yes, her. Again, not my place to say more."

Bromlin was the first to speak after the long silence. "Bah! I've had more adventure fighting beside ye, lad, in such a short time than my entire stay here. If there's more fun to be had in your company, so be it. If ye say there's a way through, then I'll stand with ye."

Senna smirked, nudging Bromlin's shoulder. "Well, I'm not letting you run headfirst into something without me there to save your hide."

Cassandra sighed, rubbing her temples before finally nodding. "Fine. If we do this, we do it right."

Alden was the last holdout, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He exhaled sharply. "Unbelievable." He stepped forward, his agreement brimming with reluctant fury. "I will uncover whatever you're hiding, Logan."

Logan grinned. "Sure. After we save Gnashridge Heights." After a pause, he added, "And you know, I may not be able to get any of these cores to the guild, but that doesn't mean I can't share them with you."

That shocked Alden enough to make him stop bristling.

Senna looked at Logan like he was crazy. "You know you can sell those for a ton of money, right?"

"I mean, if you don't want them…"

Senna laughed. "Are you kidding? I don't need any for myself, but I promised Bromly-boy a core-infused axe, and the smithy has the right machine. If we're putting our lives on the line, we're making a quick stop at the forge."

Bromlin cracked his knuckles. "Now that I can't argue with."

Cassandra was only slightly less surprised than Alden, but she slowly nodded.

Logan winked and shot her a thumbs up.

"What does that mean?" she asked, staring at his thumb.

"It means you're cool." He then shot a thumbs up at Senna and Bromlin, and even Alden, although the lattermost rolled his eyes. If they were fighting for their lives, they might as well be at their best.