The points felt like they would have been useful long term in Strength, Vitality, or Endurance—really anywhere other than Charisma—but as I thought about the challenge, it made sense.

  Part of my class was from the rogue shard that I’d obtained from the mana-mutated squirrel. The oddness of that was not lost on me. As I thought about what a rogue was, I thought of a thief, burglar, pick-pocket, or even an assassin. Everything I thought about when it came to a rogue, was centered around a criminal. By thinking that way, I’d narrowed my options down, much to my detriment. So, lesson learned.

  The words in the challenge needed to be thought through with an open mind. I needed to think in broader strokes. College English might actually provide a benefit. Rogue could also mean outside the norm, or it could be a term for a playful, if perhaps inappropriate individual. That would match up with a squirrel. Rogue could also be associated with modern day undercover agents or spies similar to the James Bond movies mom used to watch. An image of a squirrel dressed up as a roguish, James Bond flashed through my mind and I nearly broke into laughter, hiding my face at the last second to avoid breaking my persona. Focus Silas!

  As a rogue, the point of this challenge was supposed to reveal what kind of rogue I was going to be, even what kind of person I was. Therefore, was this quest supposed to reveal something about me I’d overlooked? A roguish aspect I’d hidden from myself? I wasn’t the kind of guy who would murder someone in the dark or who wanted to steal. I supposed there were situations under which I might steal, but it would be a last resort.

  I could get behind the idea of using Charisma as a weapon. I would have loved if my aura was something like menace or even sexiness. I hadn’t ever thought of myself as the player bard, but it sounded better than Adorably Harmless. Perhaps there was a clue in the name, Adorably Harmless? Perhaps the kind of rogue I was meant to be, wasn’t about flashy moves, but moving through a crowd and gathering information and insights without anyone aware… no that didn’t fit right. Still, it was what I had, so I needed to lean into it. I triggered my aura.

  The way that everyone looked at me suddenly proved the power of the aura. Men stared at me. They looked and then snorted and seemed to dismiss me. Women, on the other hand, gave me that look like I was a cute puppy. It wasn’t exactly the kind of desire that a guy might be looking for, but it was something.

  Now, I just had to get Cao’s attention and, in turn, get Bek worked up.

  Chapter 19- Stepping on Toes

  Earth Countdown: 392 days, 7 hours, 36 minutes.

  Challenge Countdown: 27 hours, 26 minutes

  The countdown for the challenge was always available for me to pull up. With it was the countdown on Earth’s fate. If this plan worked, I’d complete my first challenge with time to spare. According to the displays, time on Earth was moving at about one six the speed it was on Galen. I didn’t pretend to understand how that worked, but it was something I’d look into in the future. That was more of a problem for future me, though.

  Now, I had to piss off some brute enforcer and trust that Dori and the others had my back. My stomach sank as I walked up to Cao at the end of the bar and saw Dori slip out of the room. At least Crag and Nevin were still here, although Crag did seem to be enjoying his drinks a bit too much.

  I was so distracted that Cao turned around and knocked her tray of drinks into me. Spilling them all over the two of us.

  “You idiot, watch where…” Her words trailed off as she stared at me. Then she mumbled, “Off-worlder.”

  Her eyes grew wide as she stared at me. She tilted her head to the side, her expression a quirky arch of the brow, with a roguish smile curling up on one side of her pouty lips. “Oh, look at you. I’m sorry.” She raised one hand to her chest, and like any young, red-blooded male, my eyes followed. “I’m the clumsy one. You don’t look like you could hurt a fly.” She proceeded to pat my head… like I was a pet. This was worse than being friend zoned. I smiled weakly.

  She set the tray back on the bar. “Bert, refill that order. I need to get this guest cleaned up.”

  Then she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back toward the kitchen.

  “What…” was all that I managed to stammer out. It wasn’t like I was completely clueless about girls—well unless you asked my sister’s opinion… and maybe a couple of my ex-gf’s but… I could barely get a word out edge-wise. I don’t know if it was that she was so confident in how she was handling me, if it was being touched by this exotic beauty, or just the entire weirdness of the situation. Whatever it was, I let her drag me back into the kitchen.

  A few of the staff members looked at us, then were pulled back as the food they were cooking began to burn. Cao, however, was all over me.

  “Get that shirt off. We need to clean it up. I wonder if we’ve got anything you can borrow.”

  “Uh, this isn’t necessary…” I protested.

  She shushed me. “Nonsense. I made a mess of you. You’re the customer. You look so sweet. Not that it’s any of my business but are you sure you’re in the right place? I don’t know if this is a good place for a nice guy like you.”

  She was talking a million miles an hour and had my leather armor and shirt off before I knew what was happening. She handed them off to one of the cooks, who just shook his head as she told him to clean them up.

  I was glad to see that they had running water even if it required a hand pump at the sink, but she filled up a bucket with soapy water while she chattered on.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m not normally that clumsy. You clearly aren’t from around here. You don’t seem like an adventurer even with that armor. I can’t imagine you killing anything. I just want to pinch your cheeks, you’re so adorable.”

  She was making quite a fuss over me and more and more of the kitchen staff kept looking at me.

  One old cook called out, “Be careful she doesn’t eat you up.”

  Another said, “He looks more like a lost pet.”

  Hearing those words, an emoji flashed inside my head of a pixelated me looking up at the sky and screaming why. This aura was definitely working, if not in a way that I’d like.

  “We don’t have a shower here, so you’ll have to settle for a bucket bath. Actually, I don’t want you to make any more of a mess, so I’ll just clean you up.” Then she began rubbing a sponge over my chest. I wished it would have been sensual or something, because alien or not, she was super attractive, but this was just weird. Not to mention the gathered crowd of kitchen staff looking on.

  At one point, I wondered if this was one of those dreams they talked about where you go to school in your underwear. I’d never actually had a dream like that, but it felt like that level of embarrassment.

  “You have decent muscles for such a cutie. What brings you to Anwich, or maybe I should ask, what brings you to Galen? Oh, and we should probably keep quiet about this. There’s a guy from Transhek Corps here who won’t take no for an answer. He keeps insisting that I’m his girl.”

  Here was where things got awkward. I knew what I was supposed to do, but honestly, it felt sorta weird to me. In fact, this entire plan was feeling more and more cringe by the moment. Still, Earth’s fate was on the line. I needed to do whatever was necessary to make sure Earth had another Forerunner. Internally, I fortified myself and a pixelated version of me holding a flower between my teeth, and hair slicked back appeared in my head.

  “I can completely see why he’d be into you. I never knew how beautiful blue could be.”

  She looked at me like I was a two headed bug for a moment, but then her expression softened. “That might have sounded creepy, but I just can’t seem to get angry with you. You’re so adorable.”

  That pretty much cemented what was happening here. Internally, I felt deflated. I definitely didn’t have any game with alien girls than I did back home. My aura was basically a form of mind control. Sure, it might be subtle, but it still left me feeling dirty. So, I switched gears.

  I leaned in and whispered into her ear, “I’m actually a Forerunner. That’s why I’m here doing a quest.”

  Her eyes widened a bit. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.”

  She nodded and leaned back in so that our heads were next to one another. Oddly, it was both awkward and enticing at the same time to be standing there so close to her while I was shirtless. I could feel her breath on my neck and she had a strange, exotic scent. It was probably just something about the… hmm… I didn’t even know what they called their race, but it was probably just something about her race because I’d noticed a bit of it from Dori. A pheromone perhaps?

  Just as I was trying to figure out how to keep her engaged while not taking advantage with my aura, the door to the kitchen burst open so hard that it was hanging on its hinges.

  A monstrous being came storming in through the doorway, which was barely big enough to allow him to fit through sideways. “Cao!”

  I didn’t need to be told that Bek had made his appearance. Just looking at him was intimidating. He sorta reminded me of the space police guy from Lilo and Stitch. His limbs were even in circumference for their entire length and his body was both broad and wide while also being flat and devoid of any human like definition. He had to be a good eight feet tall and his hands ended in two fingers and a thumb. He wasn’t wearing any armor and in fact had only a harness on his upper half. His skin looked like it was a gray, smooth rock. His head seemed to sprout directly out of his shoulders with no neck to speak of and was almost rectangular in description.

  I would have said that he was similar to that Morvarg, the being that I saw in my uncle’s memories, but he was distinctly different. Still scary, but not end of the world kinda scary. Not that I had any doubts about what would happen if I had to fight him.

  No, I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. I wasn’t myself anymore. The system had made more of me. He was probably higher level, but judging from what Dori and the others had said; I earned far more stats per level than most people did.

  Just as I was thinking about standing up to him, he slammed his closed fist down on one of the prep tables. It shattered into so much kindling. Oh yeah, stats meant different things for different races. Whatever race, Bek was from, I was willing to bet that their base strength was much higher than that of a peak human.

  Cao moved to stand between me and Bek. “Bek, let it go. You know you aren’t allowed back here.”

  “If you weren’t so pretty… No never mind that. Why are you cheating on me? You know I told you, you’re my girl.”

  I rolled my eyes, but his attention seemed to be entirely on Cao.

  “And I’ve told you that I’m not interested.”

  “Interested enough to be running your hands all over the ugly little man there.”

  Bek took another step forward.

  Clearly, my aura wasn’t having any effect on him. Maybe that was because his hostility level was already so high. In the dungeon, it had only served to cause a delay in the monsters attacking me. I was going to have to experiment more, but for now, I needed to prepare.

  I stepped back from Cao and pulled my new staff out of spatial storage.

  Staff of Blocking Quality: Uncommon

  Passive Effects:

  1) Add a moderate amount to blunt damage delivered by the wielder

  2) Reduced blunt damage the wielder receives by a moderate amount for similar level force.

  Active Effects:

  1) Store Mana: 200

  2) Conjure Shield- for a base cost of 40 mana: a two-dimensional shield two feet by two feet will spring into existence to block incoming impacts. Provides extreme resistance to blunt damage, major resistance to slashing damage, mild resistance to piercing or elemental damage types.

  Time to test it out. I had already charged it up with mana while at the inn, so I was ready. Then it hit me. I needed to make sure that lots of people saw this. I needed both for Bek to be the aggressor and for me to come off as completely innocent.

  “Look, she just spilled a drink on me. I’ll grab my shirt and armor and let you two sort this out.”

  “Too late for that, little man. I saw how close you two were standing. Not even sure where you’re from, but Anwich is Transhek property and Cao is mine. It’s time this town got another object lesson.”

  He stepped forward again and slammed one fist into the other. Judging from the way he moved, I might have the advantage in speed. But, I sure didn’t want a direct confrontation, so of course, I ran straight at him.

  Chapter 20- Public Disturbance

  My agility was so far beyond anything I’d ever possessed that it was amazing to feel my body propel itself forward. It was hard to consider that I’d only possessed these abilities for less than a day. Going back to the way I had been—was unthinkable, even with all the uncertainty, I had never been as alive as I was right now.

  I cast a quick spell under my breath. It was one which I had chosen for my level 10 spell, not because I thought it was the overall best choice for a spell, but because after hearing this plan it was the one which would offer me the most help without causing any damage.

  Physical Boost

  In an instant, my Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Durability, Endurance, and Vitality all shot up by 10 points. It wasn’t anywhere near as big of a boost as it would have been once upon a time, but it was still almost a twenty percent increase to my Agility which was my highest physical stat.

  I quickly adapted to the extra speed and did a zig zag maneuver which brought me perilously close to Bek’s outstretched arms before I moved around him and headed for the common room. If I’d been playing sports back on Earth, they might have said I was breaking ankles with moves like that. I couldn’t help myself, as that thought brought a silly grin to my face. I felt so alive in the moment.

  Then I was past him and he threw something at me. It ended up having been a good call for me to activate one of the shields from my staff. The transparent square popped into existence behind me, and the pot shattered against it as Bek roared.

  The shield dissipated, which told me they were single use, but it still served its purpose. As I came running out, half the room stood up, hands on their weapons. The bartender and a couple of bouncers didn’t even stop there, but had drawn weapons. The other half of the room stared on in curiosity.

  I saw that familiar look that was happening more and more often. People stared at me intensely, and then it was almost like their eyes glazed over as they suddenly decided that I was harmless. Some of the women even gave me an appraising look. I’d have to make a special point of avoiding them.

  Then I spun around, preparing to face Bek. I had no idea how long this plan would take to come to fruition, but I didn’t want to spend that time as Bek’s punching bag.

  As he burst through the doorway, he took out a chunk of the wall with him. His face was alien and lacked many of the elements which I would use for non-human communication, but I didn’t have to guess that he was furious. Now was time to feed the fire.

  “What’s the matter? Did she tell you off? Find out that maybe she doesn’t want anything to do with you? Who can blame her, though?”

  His rectangular eyes went wide. As he screamed, “I’m gonna kill you.”

  I knew that Crag and Nevin were there. They were supposed to step in if it got too bad. I also got a glimpse at more details about Bek as, finally, Identify decided that I’d stared at him long enough.

  Bek Malosi (Common) Level: 25

  Threat: Serious

  Status: Enraged

  So basically two and a half times my level. Oh well, I’d been fighting over leveled monsters since I got to this world. Why should this be any different? In that moment, something shifted in me. I was still so scared that I was partially surprised I hadn’t wet myself, but this was my new life. I either had to own it or I might as well not even bother.

  It wasn’t heroics. That would have been for chumps.

  It was sorta like that scene in a movie; where the guy is told that he needs to stand and fight the invading aliens, but he refuses because he doesn’t want to die, not thinking through the fact that if the aliens aren’t defeated, then all of humanity would be destroyed along with the Earth.

  For me it was fight now and risk death or give up. Let the Earth fall to fourth place in the induction challenge and be turned into a mining world with the entire human race being wiped out. That wasn’t really a choice. I’d rather die on my feet facing something I had a chance against than sleep in bed oblivious—until an invisible force beyond my understanding destroyed everything.