Wishlist Wizard: The Rise of the Zero Hero [Isekai LitRPG / Now releasing 3x weekly!]

Today's Earth date: October 9, 1991

Rich people suck.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

***

Wayne stood in front of Seaview Art and Antiquities, knocking on a locked door. The same young man from before answered and informed him that the gallery was available by appointment only. He betrayed no indication that he remembered speaking to Wayne just a few days ago.

"You and I spoke before. I left a message with you requesting an appointment."

"Okay?"

"I haven't heard anything."

The man shrugged. "I am unable to assist you, sir. I am not involved with the making of appointments. If you haven't heard back, then your request was likely declined."

"I'd like to make another request."

"I'm sorry, sir. I am not permitted to take another message."

Wayne knew he had no other choice. "I have a special interest in Chosen Heroes relics because I am the Zero Hero."

The man cocked his head.

"I came to Cuan specifically to visit this gallery."

"You're really the Zero Hero?"

Wayne nodded, hating that he had to play the Zero Hero card. "You can verify it with the Cuan University Library."

"One moment." The gallery door shut, the "by appointment only" sign swinging back and forth. A few minutes later, the door opened fully, and the man invited Wayne inside.

The Museum of Wonders and Oddities was a maximalist attraction, putting every inch of every surface but the floor to use displaying this treasure or that artifact. Seaview Art and Antiquities was minimalist, like a modern museum on Earth. The room was roughly the same size as Kryss' museum in Teagaisg, but no wall had more than four paintings. A small selection of sculptures sat atop podiums and were given a wide space so that visitors could see the art from all sides.

The paintings he saw looked like Renaissance era art from Earth, with a few of them having stronger, more pronounced impressionist traits. The sculptures were marble and were all from the same artist, abstract representations of people, like the subject pushed against a membrane but couldn't break the surface.

Wayne didn't see a Page of Power on display.

The young man led Wayne to a back office and motioned for him to go inside.

A thin and slight elf with dark blue skin sat behind a desk. His piles of papers were tall enough to be a dungeon master's screen. Elves were rare in this world, as evidenced by Wayne's stupefied reaction to Sheeri in Teagaisg, but he was fully unprepared for an elf with the coloring of a Drow.

This elf wasn't a Drow, of course. Those were fictional. Even more interesting to Wayne was that he didn't feel an odd sensation at the back of his mind like he did with Sheeri.

"I'm Perris," the elf said without standing or offering a handshake. "What brings the Zero Hero to my gallery?"

Wayne accepted a seat across from Perris. He could only see the elf's face from the nose up because of the papers between them. "I heard you had a document from the Chosen Heroes, and I'm interested in acquiring it. It would be a single colorful page, front and back, promoting products from Earth."

"I believe I know which piece you mean," Perris replied. "I am reluctant to sell as it was given to me by Laszlo the Paladin personally."

"You met him?"

Perris nodded. "I've been in business for some time. That particular piece has both sentimental and financial value to me."

"I understand," Wayne said. "What would you feel would be a fair offer?"

"I don't know that I desire to sell."

"I am also willing to trade if there is something I could do or procure for you."

Perris raised an eyebrow. "Do?"

"Correct. The piece is worth about 1,300 gold on the open market, but let's set the value at 2,000 gold for the sentimental value. I'd pay that outright or offer a service that has the same value."

The elf laughed. "Laszlo was substantially more naive. Earnest with a kind heart, but he had no sense for business or negotiation. He gave me that page as a thank you for helping him navigate Cuan nobility. I fear the boy would have been inside out and committed to several lifelong contracts before reaching the Water Temple otherwise."

"His journals often felt like that too."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they do. How is it that your knowledge is so much different from his?"

"The Chosen Heroes are all eighteen years old, but whatever glitch that brought me here didn't apply that rule to me. My mind is forty five, which means quite a bit more life experience. By human standards at least."

"I see," Perris said, his brow furrowed. "So you're a twenty two year old scholar with the mind of a forty five year old from another world."

"And broken Diary access."

"Right! Fascinating." The elf leaned back as if to calm his own mind. "Apologies, the matter at hand is your interest in my piece, not my own curiosities."

"I don't mind," Wayne assured him.

"I will need some time to think about this. Are you in Cuan for long?"

"For a few weeks at least. I'm staying with Lord Amethyst if you need to reach me."

"Lord Amethyst?"

"Yes…"

Perris chuckled again. "Yes, you and Laszlo are very different. If you have the influence to be a guest of Lord Amethyst, I propose a trade. If you can provide an Earth artifact to replace my piece and assist me in researching the Water Temple, I would be satisfied."

"How about a book well-read by Jason, the Fighter who declined to join the Chosen Heroes?"

"You have such an item? Truly?"

Wayne held up a finger and stood.

Goods Storage.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He stepped into the unit, dug around in the shelves, and came back out with The Hobbit in his hands. Perris was standing now, leaning over his desk to see into the dimensional storage space. His mouth hung open. Wayne had a feeling that moments of surprise and wonder were rare for the elf, having lived so long and seen so much.

Perris handled the book with the care of a surgeon, carefully flipping each page. "Laszlo mentioned this book to me. I'm quite pleased to have the chance to read it."

"What did you need from the Water Temple?"

"Right. Since people from our world can't enter, we have very little information about the interior, and when the Chosen Heroes are here, they don't have much time for research, on account of all the demons."

Perris was interested in a map of the interior as well as rubbings of artwork inside. Lazslo told him about a hallway with relief sculptures on either side, and rubbings would be the only way Perris would ever lay eyes on them.

"May I have some time? I just started putting together a team, and they need training."

"Within the next fifty years would be sufficient," Perris said. "But, please wait here a moment."

Perris stepped out of the office, leaving the door open. Wayne stayed put.

Twenty minutes or so later, Perris reappeared with a folder in his hand. "Apologies. I had to pull this from our storage." He passed the folder to Wayne. "Do I have your word that you will honor our terms?"

"Yes."

"Then take this now. The book you traded is worth more than the page, making the Temple research a personal favor. For that, I can do you the favor of providing this now, in good faith."

When Wayne opened the folder, Perris assured him the damage was present when he received it.

The page had the bumpy stiffness of water damage, and one side–page 3 he guessed, since the other side was page 4–was bleached to near white, like it had sat in the sun for years, the ultraviolet light slowly degrading the ink. Wayne had seen plenty of posters and game boxes suffer the same fate on Earth.

He could faintly discern the outlines of four games, but that was likely more a result of his familiarity with the catalog's layout than what he could actually see. He couldn't read any of the text, and he couldn't identify the games.

The other side had one mostly visible corner. Everything else was coated in the same black ink Wayne found on other pages. It was thick, almost like oil paint, and it had begun to crack.

The extent of the damage was disappointing, but the lone visible product took his breath away. He read the description:

FOUR SCORE JOYSTICK

You can play any four-player seal Nintendo game with up to 4 players by using the NES Four Score with your control deck. Maximize your fun and sharpen teamwork skills.

The Four Score was a multi-tap. The original hardware had ports for only two controls, so this device–shaped vaguely like a powerstrip–plugged into both to provide new ports for up to four players. Wayne had a similar device for the SNES to play Bomberman with three of his friends.

How would the Christmas List ability interact with a piece of hardware? Until recently, he only had access to video games, and he hadn't unlocked the accounting or word processing software to know if the system accepted those either.

"Thank you, Perris. Thank you so much."

***

Wayne again lamented that he couldn't track his experience points, but he was willing to grind for the next week straight to get to level 8. At that point, he'd open two new slots for Christmas List. He was desperate to see how his new pages worked, particularly Four Score.

The immediate area around Cuan was mostly open fields. The trees that blanketed this land were cut down long ago to build ships and cities. He ventured into a forest to the east, finding a quantity of goblins similar to what was outside the Capital. That was something, but he doubted they provided meaningful experience at this point.

So he pressed deeper, but before he did, he used his Navigation skill to select a point just outside of the forest. With that, he could go as deep as he wanted and always have a path back thanks to his digital breadcrumb trail.

Three hours of walking east and using Probe netted him a handful of goblins, but that changed as he neared hour four.

When he hit Probe, a mass of red dots appeared in the northeast corner of his HUD. He counted seventeen but knew the density could potentially hide several more.

These monsters could be the experience he needed to move up a level, or they could overwhelm him and rip him to pieces.

Wayne crept forward, keeping an eye on the dots for signs of alarm. They milled about peacefully, and Wayne eventually saw the dots for himself.

Ratmen. Lots of ratmen. They had cleared a small patch of forest, leaving behind chewed stumps, and seemed to have dug a burrow, similar to the rattlin nest he cleared early on in his adventures.

This burrow was bigger, large enough for a human or a ratman to stand mostly upright and enter. He wagered the burrow was relatively new from the piles of fresh, loose dirt around the clearing.

One group of ratmen skinned a pair of deer while the rest sat on the ground, carving points on the end of long sticks.

They couldn't swarm Wayne if they didn't know where he was.

Skycat F-14XX.

The fighter jet buzzed into the clearing, and Wayne tapped his new Missile ability to fire the spell version of Missiles at the rats. The first strafe killed three ratmen and wounded two others. The nest erupted with chaos, and ten more rats emerged from the burrow.

All were ready for battle, but none were sure what it was they were fighting.

With his complete focus on piloting Skycat, rather than piloting while also swashbuckling, Wayne could maneuver and aim with ease and precision. He strafed again, dropping five more. As he turned the jet around for a third pass, he cast Nee, partially blocking the burrow entrance with shrubbery. If the ratmen retreated to their burrow like the rattlins did, he might have to go inside to get the rest.

Skycat came back around and dipped for another Missile strafe.

Instead of Missiles, shrubberry sprouted where the Missiles would have landed, a fast line of bushes popping out of the ground.

Wayne was as confused by that as the ratmen were.

He thought about using the spell Light and used the Skycat Missile skill. The fighter jet was now like a flying flashlight. Could he cast any spell through Skycat?

A fresh shrill told Wayne the experiments would have to wait. The rats caught his scent, and a band of them charged his position, wooden spears in hand.

He killed most of them with Sword of Water charges and Blitzed forward to slice the rest, activating his sword's ability to outline all of the remaining ratmen in red. Skycat crashed into a tree somewhere in the distance.

The rest of the battle was tiring, but not difficult. Blitz and Easy Out made him impossible to hit, and cycling between Missile, Sword of Water, and good old fashioned stabbing quickly reduced the ratmen's numbers. Somewhere along the way, he felt two notifications but was too occupied to see what they were for.

When he finished, he counted thirty three ratman corpses in various pieces around the burrow. He suspected more were underground, but instead of going in after them, he spammed Missile down the entrance tunnel until he heard it collapse. Some might survive, but he did what he could.

He opened the system. He went up a level:

Hero: Wayne the Guy

Level: 8

HP: 148

STR: 18

AGI: 14

VIT: 14

LCK: 23

Such a small bump in hitpoints was disappointing, but another point in strength wouldn't hurt.

He also had a new skill from Crystalis:

Insect Flute – If you play it in a certain place, the Insect Monster appears.

Having no idea what it meant, he activated the skill, hearing a short and simple flute melody play when he did. Looking around, he didn't see any monsters, and checking his system, he didn't see any changes there either.

Wayne noticed a round shadow on the ground next to him, and it rapidly expanded. He looked up in time to see an insect twice the size of his carriage fall from the sky and land in the clearing, the sharp stumps flattening beneath its weight.

He prepared himself to Blitz or Easy Out, but the insect didn't do anything else. It simply sat where it landed.

Without approaching, he took a better look at the creature.

The massive bug was like a giant green ant head with three chitin-covered legs on either side. It had six red eyes, wrapping to either side of its head. It had mandibles like an ant as well, but they seemed more like teeth and were smaller than they should be, relative to its proportions.

"Come?"

The insect skittered toward Wayne.

"Holy shit. Stop. Stop." The creature did as it was commanded, and Wayne breathed a sigh of relief. He very much disliked a giant insect monster skittering toward him.

Using the skill again, the insect collapsed into itself, like it was sucked into a black hole.

A grin spread across Wayne's face, and he traced his steps out of the forest with a brisk jog.

Insect Flute.

The bug fell from the sky again. Wayne climbed on top and rode it back to Cuan.