“I got no clue, kid. I’ve only been here a couple of times. Ask yer uncle; he should know somethin’ more.”

  “… I guess I’ll do that,” Ryan muttered as he picked up the small statue. He still didn’t know what it was for, but he was definitely curious now. Though, for now, it was time for them to make their way out of the dungeon to where Kula was waiting.

  They picked up the other statue that the freshly killed area boss dropped as well as the dagger that had still been stuck in its head, and then made their way back to the entrance. Anders took out a few mascots on the way as if they were annoying bugs. He didn’t really have to do much to take each of them out, but it was enough for Ryan to figure out his class.

  Anders was a Brawler or an adjacent class. It was the exact type that Ryan thought he would awaken with rather than the Spirit Keeper class. It was interesting to see in person, since the Brawler class was all about rough, improvised combat, so Anders was really just kicking or throwing whatever trash he could find at the mascot’s heads, crushing them completely. Of course, Ryan took the liberty to collect the coins that those mascots dropped.

  Before long, they reached the outside of the old amusement park and approached Kula, the fully cloaked healer. He himself refused to enter the dungeon, seemingly for some kind of religious reason. Ryan remembered that there were some specific gods’ followers who believed dungeons to be unholy, refusing to be even close to them. Luckily, Kula was fine with at least coming close to dungeons, but he refused to step foot inside even just momentarily.

  “Ka-har.” Kula sighed loudly as Ryan took off his reinforced jacket. The White Mage grabbed that large golden ring he used for his healing magic and approached Ryan. Kula leaned in closer, seemingly taking a look at Ryan’s injury.

  “Are you checking exactly how my bone broke? I heard that White Mages basically need to reconstruct a body to heal it rather than just boosting natural recovery like other healing classes,” Ryan pointed out curiously, but Kula seemed to ignore him for a few moments.

  “Zhi-la mak gurag.”

  “Ah, alright, that’s good. I’m glad that it’s a clean break. It doesn’t really hurt that much, either,” Ryan replied with a relieved sigh, and Anders stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

  “Ya understood him?”

  Ryan turned to the dwarf with his own raised eyebrow. “Huh? Oh, not fully, I guess. I don’t speak Jistian or anything, but I’ve been understanding the vibe of what Kula’s saying. Like a combination of my type of intuition and sociability, probably.”

  Kula looked at Ryan for a few moments before continuing to heal him. It was a somewhat-weird feeling for Ryan. He could feel his bones shifting and moving into place as his muscles and fat wrapped around them. The painful heat that was coursing through his arm until now was fading away, the swelling going down as well. In just a few minutes, Ryan’s arm was perfectly healed.

  “Just don’t use it too much for the rest of the day,” Kula said, speaking in perfect, accent-free Riverian. His cadence was a bit unusual, but it was still perfectly fluent.

  “… You speak Riverian?”

  Modak walked into the café with an exhausted groan, then put his bag down onto the table that Silvia was sitting at. She was painting something on a piece of paper, though it seemed like just some kind of jumbled mess right now.

  “Tough day at work?” Silvia asked, and Modak slowly nodded.

  “Yeah, we’ve been trying to solve some vocal-amplification issues all day … Producing mana-infused sound through technology is way harder than I thought it would be.” Modak groaned again, and Silvia smiled.

  “Yeah, but won’t it be even cooler once you finally get it to work, then?”

  The orc smiled lightly. “I guess so. Ryan’s not back yet?”

  “Nah, but he’s on his way, apparently,” Silvia responded, and Runar came walking up to the table.

  “He’s working hard at reaching level 10, but it shouldn’t take more than one more week. By the time Spirit Week comes around, his schedule should be freed up again,” Runar explained. “Want something to drink?”

  Modak thought about it for a moment. “Just a black coffee, maybe.”

  “Comin’ right up,” Runar replied, quickly making his way over behind the counter to pour Modak a coffee, and the orc looked back at Silvia.

  “So, what are you making?”

  The young elf grinned lightly. “Just playing around with something,” she replied, finally looking up from the piece of paper, revealing a light glow in her eyes. Curious to see what she was making, Modak waited for a few moments until Silvia seemed to have finished the colorful, jumbled drawing.

  And then she started to fold up the paper, and Modak soon realized what it was. It was a paper airplane, and now, the jumbled parts finally made sense: once folded, they came together into a bird’s wings.

  With a smile, Silvia threw the paper plane into the air, and it was carried around the top of the busy space. The other customers looked up in surprise, watching it fly around without sinking at all and without a destination in mind. Though, at some point, it did run out of mana, and the effect of the magic Silvia had placed on it ran out.

  Just then, the café’s door opened up, and Ryan stepped inside. The plane hit him straight on the forehead, crumpling the plane’s tip. He caught the piece as it fell down, noticing that everyone was now staring at him.

  “… Well, that’s a greeting, I guess.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hidden in Plain Sight

  Ryan leaned down and grabbed the paper plane, bringing it with him over to his friends’ table. Luckily, all the people in the café had already moved back on to their own regular conversations, though of course they were very curious to see someone in such unique-looking armor, a baseball bat, and a shield. That was why most of them still glanced over toward him every once in a while.

  Ryan put his stuff down at the table and sat down with a long groan, making Silvia laugh a bit. “You guys both made the same sound when you sat down.”

  With a raised eyebrow, Ryan looked at Modak. “Long day at work?”

  “Mm-hmm. Long day in the … you know …” the orc responded, and Ryan immediately nodded. At that point, Runar came over with two cups in his hand; one was Modak’s black coffee, and the other was an iced latte, Ryan’s usual order.

  “Oh, thanks,” Ryan said. “Can you get me something to eat as well? I stashed some stuff for me in the break room.”

  “Coming right up,” Runar replied, quickly turning around to head into the break room behind the counter.

  “So …” Silvia curiously looked at Ryan. “What level are you?”

  Ryan grinned lightly as he leaned back in his seat, “Level 8. Maximus is level 9, and Gaia is level 6. We’re making pretty good progress already. It looks like Jester’s coming along to warming up to me as well, but there’s nothing from the others at all.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s pretty fast, right? And honestly, I don’t know how you even managed to get to level 4 in a single day; I’ve been using my skills so much and I’m only level 4 since yesterday,” Silvia pointed out, and Ryan looked at the paper plane contemplatively.

  “I mean … have you been making just things like this? Like, I know you made my armor, shield, and bat, but even that felt like you were just kind of … playing around?”

  Silvia slightly tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  Modak nodded in agreement. “I think so as well, like … I think the reason why Ryan leveled up so much on his first day in a dungeon was because the situation was so serious.”

  “Exactly,” Ryan replied, looking inwardly at Maximus’s domain, where the knight was currently using the wooden weaponry provided by his domain to train. After the Spirit Domain skill leveled up a bit, more of Maximus’s hut was revealed, and tons of different training weapons attached to the outer wall were slowly coming into view. “Basically, it’s like … the function behind how leveling works isn’t a hundred percent understood, but there are a few parts we do know. So, let’s say Maximus trains for five hours. The actual progress he’s going to make level-wise could be … five percent. But if he were to use those five hours for actual combat, he could make fifty percent progress.”

  Silvia frowned lightly. “So, what, there’s no use in practicing, or sketching, or playing around with it? I always have to work on serious projects to make any progress at all?”

  “Actually, no, not at all. So, the more you practice, the more of an experience boost you get when you actually do do the real thing. With the same example, if Maximus trains for five hours, and then is in actual combat for five hours, he could make more than a full level’s worth of progress, and that’s not even mentioning the non-system-related progress you make,” Ryan explained. “At the end of the day, as long as you just add some proper ‘projects’ into your workflow, you can just kinda do what you think is fun.”

  With a relieved expression, Silvia nodded. “Alright, in that case, I’ll try and work on something. Maybe a painting … It’s been a while since I sat down in front of a canvas, anyway. Hm, I might need to get some new oil paints, though …”

  “I can help with that,” Runar pointed out, giving the small bag filled with snacks to Ryan before placing a small metal pyramid on the table. It put off a slight glow for just a moment, and Ryan could feel magic flow through him momentarily. “We can talk freely here with that; it creates something like a small barrier that obscures someone’s perception of what’s contained in it so nobody will hear or even notice you guys.”

  “Oh! That’s so cool; how does it work? I think I’ve seen some of these around at the Magic Tower.” Modak curiously leaned forward, and Runar quietly yawned.

  “Yeah, the Magic Tower uses those a lot when they talk about projects that they don’t want other mages to hear about. We use them when we’ve got certain types of matters to deal with too, like when we need to move people through the city inconspicuously,” Runar explained, and Silvia slowly looked away from the metal pyramid and back up at him.

  “So, what do you mean with ‘I can help with that’?”

  “Right, sorry. Basically, my class depends on writing runes, and a lot of the time, I do that using special inks with pigments from magical sources that increase the efficiency of what I paint. I was working on something last night and realized that it might help you, too, though you might have to make your paint yourself. I only have the pigments themselves downstairs.”

  Silvia immediately beamed in excitement. “Wait, seriously? That’s actually really cool! I’ve never made my own paint before!”

  “Alright, then I’ll show you my pigment storage later,” Runar responded with a nod, before turning to his nephew. “Anyway, how did things go today at the dungeon?”

  With a grin on his face, Ryan pushed his hand into the completely stuffed backpack, pulling out the plastic gorilla statue. “Pretty well, I’d say.”

  “Oh!” Runar let out. “You already got him?”

  “Yup, and he even had a second one of those statues in that bag of his, together with a ton of coins,” Ryan replied. “So, will you finally tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with those?”

  With a grin on his face, Runar placed his hands on the backrest of one of the leftover chairs at the table. “Well, what do you think it’s for? It’s money. Fake money, sure, but there’s still only one thing you can really do with it, isn’t there?”

  Ryan looked at his uncle with a slight frown, pulling out the massive map of the dungeon. He quickly unfolded it and took a glance around it. Looking at the map’s legend, there was just one thing marked on the map, just one thing that seemed like the right answer to that question: a gift shop. One that was separate from the ones in the plaza area that Ryan had been going to the past few days.

  “So, what, can I exchange the coins here?” Ryan asked, pointing at the map, and Runar nodded.

  “Yup. It was kind of part of the park’s theme before it was closed down. People that would go there could solve a bunch of quests. For example, each of the mascots could give you a different small task, like finding a specific object in the park or something, and then they would give you one of those coins. If you got all the coins and proved it to that gorilla, he’d give you a statue, which counts as a special currency. Other types of quests are things like getting through the haunted house, going on all the rides, playing games at some of the different stands. That kind of thing,” Runar explained. “And that was translated to the dungeon now. By killing the monsters or solving the dungeon’s puzzles, you can get coins like that and then exchange them for other rewards later on.”

  “Ehh … that actually sounds pretty fun; I wonder why that place went under,” Silvia let out curiously.

  “Who knows? It could have been anything, really. Even we don’t really know what happened there,” Runar responded, seemingly not really caring all too much. But Ryan had a bad feeling about it. The fact that the area boss went around killing the other mascots still didn’t sit quite right with him.

  “So, are we going there tomorrow?”

  “Yup, just making a stop to see what they’re offering at the moment. It kind of changes every once in a while, but they let you hand in your coins, so it’s better to stop by to store the points every once in a while,” Runar responded, glancing over to the door. Someone was stepping inside: Chantora, the Awakened chef from the noodle shop in the Channel.

  Immediately, Runar walked out of the magic item’s barrier and toward Chantora, smiling with an expression that Ryan didn’t see on him often. The two spoke for a little while before Runar guided him over to a table near the counter.

  “Oh?” Ryan let out with a raised eyebrow, looking at his uncle’s expression.

  “Who’s that?” Silvia asked curiously, and Ryan quickly explained.

  “He’s the owner of that noodle shop I told you guys about. During the giant’s rampage in the Channel, his shop was destroyed, but he wanted to move his restaurant somewhere else anyway. Runar’s been helping him find a place in the area to set up shop.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t know Runar had any … friends,” Modak said awkwardly. “I know that he gets along well with the people downstairs and all, but those feel less like friends and more like … coworkers.”

  “Yeah, but I feel like there might be a bit more than just friendship going on there.” Ryan grinned lightly. “Too bad my uncle’s already busy as hell; otherwise, they might get somewhere.”

  “Though if that chef opens a restaurant nearby, then they could get to meet a lot, right?”

  “Well, maybe so, but I live with him and I barely see him around, so I wouldn’t count on it,” Ryan replied, pulling out his phone with a slight yawn. “I’ll have to see if I can help him out a bit to free up his schedule or something.”

  Just then, a message came through: a notification he’d been waiting for. “Oh, fuck, yeah.”

  “What happened?” Modak asked curiously, and Ryan happily replied.

  “I bought some model kits, and they’re arriving in a bit. They’re the ones you told me about, Modak.”

  “Those car models? They’re pretty cool, and super complex too. It’s like you’re putting together a real car; plus, they’re made of metal. I used to play with them a lot,” Modak nostalgically explained, and Ryan nodded with a smile.

  “It’s those ones, yeah. They’re pretty expensive, though. If you use a mana battery, they actually work. But they had other things beside those cars, like, trains, planes, some tanks, and even a turret that shoots small plastic pellets. I bought a couple of each,” Ryan explained, already sighing as he thought about how much work that was going to be. “Those aren’t usually my style, but Gregor is an Artillerist; plus, he’s apparently a robot or something. And after looking into the Artillerist class, I figured this might be a good way to get his attention and wake him up.”

  “Ooh, do let us know if it works,” Silvia replied curiously.

  “Will do,” Ryan replied, getting up from his seat. “But for now, I’ll go upstairs and take a shower. Plus, Maximus wanted to read the newest chapter of one of his stories, and Gaia wants to check up on her plants, so I’ll drop them off upstairs. I’ll be back after.”

  Ryan got up from his seat and grabbed his backpack, heading to the back of the café. He greeted Chantora on his way, then climbed the stairs up to the flat. Ryan dropped by his room and turned on his computer while undressing, placing his armor onto some hangers. He cleared out his backpack, putting all the coins and the two plastic statues into a large laundry basket with all of the other ones that he had gotten so far. It was overflowing at this point, thanks to the area boss’s coins.

  When his computer booted up, Ryan pulled Maximus out of his domain and navigated to the website that the knight usually read on. After, he grabbed some clothes and walked to the balcony door, opening it up so that he could summon Gaia outside. He was just wearing underwear, so he wasn’t going to go out.

  “Let me know if anything’s wrong or you need my help,” Ryan said, and Gaia immediately nodded as she got ready to work.

  Ryan’s shower didn’t take all that long; he had already showered after his workout this morning anyway, so he was really just getting rid of any bits of dirt or grime that had gotten stuck to him since. The amusement park wasn’t particularly clean.

  After he got out, Ryan got dressed and briefly checked on himself in the mirror. He’d been getting regular treatment from Kula recently, and though at first, the White Mage had hoped that Ryan’s scars could be healed, they ended up not fading even slightly. They were too old for him to do anything about it, though Ryan was fine with that for now. Of course, he still felt self-conscious about them, but he was working on it. The scars didn’t make him any lesser.