He Who Fights with Monsters
He Who Fights With Monsters
ALSO IN SERIES
HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS
BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO
1. Strange Business
1
Strange Business
Jason woke up naked, face down in the grass. That was not how he expected to wake up, since he had gone to sleep in his own bed and his own Darth Vader boxer shorts. From the feel of cool grass on his unmentionables, he had been removed from his bed and shorts both. The last thing he recalled was doing what he did most nights: playing video games until he got tired and then fumbling his way into bed.
The grass he woke up on was weirdly comfortable; a dense bed of lush green softness. It wasn’t like any grass he had encountered before, which was a little unusual. His father was a landscape architect, and Jason had grown up learning more about grass than he ever wanted to know. Mostly because it was the only escape from his mother’s Japanese lessons.
Jason rolled himself over and sat up. He was feeling odd, beyond just the unusual circumstances. It wasn’t a bad sensation, more like waking up after a really long sleep. There was the lingering sopor, but also a feeling of refreshed energy. He ran a hand over his head, only to be startled when he realised his hair was missing.
“Uh…”
He felt about his head with both hands, but his head was balloon smooth. He made a quick check with his eyes and hands, realising there was no hair anywhere on his body. No eyebrows, nothing on his chest, or arms, or… other places.
“I thought it was meant to look bigger when you trimmed.”
He pushed himself to his feet and started assessing his environment. Casting his gaze to the sky, he saw that the sun was high and the air was warm. The sky was unbroken blue, the blazing orb burning away so much as the merest hint of cloud. Sunburn, more than cold, was likely to threaten his exposed extremities.
Looking around, he saw that he was boxed in between two long, tall hedges. Glancing up and down the dead-straight lane, side-junctions headed off at sharp right angles in either direction. The lane itself was wide and grassy, with plenty of room for unconscious sprawling. The hedge walls were meticulously trimmed.
After an unhappy glance down at his bald, naked body, he set off at random to explore. He quickly discovered he was in a hedge maze, the living walls cultivated to almost twice Jason’s height. Jason’s first thought was to climb one to get a better sense of his location, but a closer examination of the hedges changed his mind. Instead of the usual boxwood, the hedges were something very prickly, and he was very naked. He looked up and down the path he was on, with neither direction looking any better than the other.
“What the bloody hell is going on?”
As if in response to his question, something appeared in front of him. It looked like a touch screen, floating in the air, disembodied. He reached out to touch it with an experimental finger, the screen shimmering as his finger passed straight through.
“Hologram?”
He looked at the ground and the nearby hedges for some kind of projector, but as he started moving, the screen followed. There was text on the screen, which he read.
New Quest: [Stranger in a Strange Land]
You have awoken in a place you do not know. Explore the area to discover more.
Objective: Explore the hedge maze 0/1.
Reward: Simple pants.
“Huh.”
He looked around suspiciously. He carefully probed the pointy foliage of the hedge walls, looking for hidden cameras. Looking up at the sky, he didn’t spot any camera drones. What he did notice was the moon, pale and easy to overlook in the daylight. Then he noticed another moon.
“That can’t be right.”
Jason looked down at the floating screen, then back up at the sky. Still two moons.
“Am I going nuts?”
Jason sat down on the grass, unsure what to do. He kept glancing up at the sky and the extra moon. In front of him, the screen still waited patiently.
“This is crazy. I mean, a quest? I’m not a level one sorcerer.”
Another screen appeared next to the first.
Jason Asano
Race: Outworlder.
Current rank: normal.
Progression to iron rank: 0% (0/4 essences)
Attributes
[Power] (no essence): normal.
[Speed] (no essence): normal.
[Spirit] (no essence): normal.
[Recovery] (no essence): normal.
Racial Abilities (Outworlder)
[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Stranger]
Essences (0/4)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
“Is this a character sheet? Am I meant to understand any of this?”
He shook his head in bewilderment.
“It could have at least gone with a game system I know.”
He looked over the screen again.
“Map,” he read, latching onto something familiar. “I know what maps are. How do I see the map?”
A new screen obligingly appeared, but as it was the third screen, the space in front of him was getting crowded. He absently thought it would be convenient for the other screens to close, which they immediately did.
“I’m sure that’s good.”
Things were getting harder to explain away, even ignoring the extra moon. Some kind of voice-command hologram was implausible, but not impossible. Mental command holograms were something else entirely.
“I’m becoming increasingly concerned. Also, I’m talking to myself a lot. I’m sure that’s fine and definitely not a defence machanism to stave off panic.”
Hoping it wouldn’t work, he started experimenting. He was able to open and close any of the windows with a simple thought.
“Maybe you’re unconscious,” he reassured himself. “Maybe you have a brain tumour and you’re in a hospital somewhere. Or passed out on the floor. Hallucinating in an asylum. A nice one, with a big garden. But no hedge maze.” He closed his eyes with a groan. “How is this the way I’m trying to comfort myself?”
Jason took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before opening his eyes again. The screens were still there, waiting.
“Just go with it, I guess,” he told himself. “Reserve judgement until more information is available. That’s the rational approach.”
He turned his gaze back to the map floating in front of him. It looked like a map from any video game, complete with a location listing.
Zone: Vane Estate (Hedge Maze).
Also like a video game map, it was mostly obscured. The only unveiled portion was the small section of the hedge maze he had already explored. He tried moving the map with mental commands, finding he could zoom it in and out as easily as he could open and close the disembodied screens.
Zooming all the way out he reached a world map that looked both familiar and unfamiliar. Although the details were obscured, he could decipher the outline of the continents. Disturbingly, they weren’t quite the same as the ones he knew. South East Asia was a singular landmass, pushing Australia south and east where it looked to have consumed New Zealand. The Iberian and Arabian peninsulas were missing entirely, leaving Africa wholly disconnected from Europe and Asia. Sri Lanka was further south and several times larger, making for a huge land mass in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“Well, that’s not what the world looks like. Lax cartography?”
According to the map, Jason was in south-west Africa, somewhere around inland Namibia. He looked at the rich, green hedges boxing him in. The lush grass felt cool under his feet. He felt the hot, but not dry, air on his skin.
“This doesn’t feel like the Kalahari Desert.”
He sighed, closing the map.
“This is some strange business.”
He pulled up his character sheet again.
Racial Abilities (Outworlder)
[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Stranger]
“Shouldn’t my race be human? What’s an outworlder?”
Jason half expected another screen to appear, but nothing did, so he looked down the list.
“Interface seems obvious. Quest system too, I guess. Inventory?”
A window appeared, dominated by an almost empty grid of icon slots. There were five spaces down and eight across, for a total of forty. There was also what looked like a currency counter at the bottom, depicting six different coins. Each coin had a counter that read zero.
“Well, that’s certainly a classic inventory,” Jason said. “Can I really put stuff in here?”
There was one item in the inventory, occupying the first slot. It was some kind of red icon, presumably representing an actual item.
“Alright, Jason. Time to see how nuts you’ve really gone. How do I get this thing out?”
After some quick trial and error, he discovered it was a simple as plucking the icon straight out of the screen. The icon vanished and the item appeared magically in his hand. It was a medallion the size of his palm. It looked and felt like polished red marble with gold engravings on both sides. It was pleasantly warm to the touch. On one side the engraving was a picture of a fire bird, while the other had symbols reading ‘Authority of the World Phoenix.’
“Well, that just magically appeared out of thin air,” Jason said. “That’s definitely not possible. Wait, why can I read this? I never even learned Japanese properly.”
Jason’s father, Ken Asano, was born in Japan, but raised in Australia from a very young age. Proving there is no zealot like a convert, Ken was all about the Australian lifestyle, from pub rock to footy matches and weekend barbecues. He fell right in with the family of his wife, Cheryl, which was as Australian as he could ask for. Miners and farmers, tracing their bloodline back through bushrangers, convicts, and indigenous Australians. Ironically, Cheryl was the one fascinated with Japan, trying to engage her children with their father’s cultural heritage. Despite strong support from her mother-in-law, results were mixed.
Jason tried putting the red tablet back into the inventory. His first attempt was to shove it into the screen, which surprisingly worked. It vanished from his hands and reappeared as an icon.
“That’s disconcerting.”
Jason’s grip on reality was feeling increasingly tenuous. The screens were odd, but could conceivably, if implausibly, be the product of hidden hologram projectors. It was when they started responding to his thoughts that he started to get worried, and now he was pulling objects out of thin air. He closed the inventory and pulled up his character sheet again. Next down the ability list was the map, which he’d already looked at, then astral affinity.
Ability: [Astral Affinity]
Increased resistance to dimension effects and astral forces. Dimension abilities have increased effect and transcendent damage is increased.
“No idea what that means.”
Only one ability remained.
Ability: [Mysterious Stranger]
Language adaptation.
Essence, awakening stone and skill-book absorption.
Immunity to identification and tracking effects.
“Language adaptation? Is that how I read the weird writing on the tablet?”
He took the tablet out again.
“What is this thing?”
Item: [World-Phoenix Token] (transcendent rank, legendary)
???. (consumable, ???)
Effect: ???
Effect: ???
Uses remaining: 1/1
“Question marks. That’s enlightening. Do I have to pay a wizard to identify items?”
He put the tablet away, closing all the open windows except for the map.
“Alright, then,” he said, looking up and down the pathway he was on. Neither offered anything to recommend it over the other.
“It’s no yellow wood,” he told himself, “but I guess it’s time to Robert Frost this thing.”
He picked a direction at random and set off.
“I really wish I had clothes on.”
* * *
Jason was walking through the maze, the map open in front of him. It was being unveiled as he walked. His current plan was to reveal enough that he could plot a way out. He froze when he heard a rustle in the hedges.
“Um, g’day?” he called out, hands moving to nervously hide his unmentionables. “Hello? Buenos días? Guten morgen?”
There wasn’t any response.
“Maybe it’s not morning. Guten tag?”
There still wasn’t any response.
“Yeah, Jason,” he muttered to himself, “that was the problem. You got the time of day wrong.”
He shrugged.
“Makes as much sense as anything else here, I guess.”
He was about to resume walking when a window appeared.
New Quest: [No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service]
For unknown reasons, your immediate area has become infested with lesser monsters.
Objective: Discover the reason lesser monsters have infested the area 0/1
Reward: Simple shirt.
Bonus Objective: Defeat ten lesser monsters 0/10.
Reward: Simple footwear.
“Monsters? That doesn’t sound plausible.”
Jason was looking around suspiciously when something small came hurtling from the bottom of a hedge. His hands shot back over his privates, which left his head an exposed target. He was blinded by something latching onto his face, something sharp digging painfully into his scalp. He yanked it off with both hands, screaming as a chunk of skin went with it. He dropped to his knees, slamming the thing into the ground, over and over until it stopped struggling.
You have defeated [Potent Hamster]
Defeat lesser monsters 1/10.
Jason released the creature and scuttled back, still on his hands and knees. His heart was racing, the wounds on his head throbbing. Blood trickled down his face and he wiped it away from his eyes.
“What in the merry hell is happening? How did a hamster jump on my head?”
Jason looked over at the creature. According to the window that popped up it was some kind of hamster, but was easily as big as Jason’s head. That made it bigger than any hamster he had heard of. It was distended from being pounded into the dirt, as well as streaked with blood from Jason’s head. He crawled forwards cautiously, ready to jump back. Extending a hesitant finger, he poked at it.
Would you like to loot [Potent Hamster]?
Jason rocked back, hands clutching his bald head. His fingers found his wound and he yelped in pain.
“What the hell is going on?”
2. Of Course Magic is a Thing
2
Of Course Magic is a Thing
Jason read the screen again.
Would you like to loot [Potent Hamster]?
“Yes?”
The body of the dead creature made a fizzing sound, like a rapid chemical reaction. The body started melting rapidly, first the flesh, then even the skeleton, all dissolving into rainbow-coloured smoke. It seemed pretty until it hit Jason with a stench thick as cheese, like burned hair and rotting meat. He scrambled away to escape the rancid smell, dry heaving on all fours. Looking over as he hacked out coughs, he saw the creature’s body had vanished, as if it never existed at all. He ignored the window that popped up, dropping onto his back in the soft grass.
“I hate this,” he told the sky. “I’m naked, bleeding, and have no idea where I am. I can’t think of any better explanation for what’s happening than that I’ve lost my bloody mind. Worst of all, I’m going to get sunburnt in places that don’t see a lot of outdoor exposure.”
He sat up with a groan, reading the screen waiting for him.
[Monster Core (Lesser)] has been added to your inventory.
[Healing Unguent (Iron)] has been added to your inventory.
10 [Lesser Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
“Oh, straight into the inventory. That place that lets me make things appear and disappear. I’ve definitely gone insane.”
Now familiar with opening and closing the screens, the inventory window appeared with a simple thought. Two more of the forty grids were now occupied with little icons, while the currency counter now had the number ten listed over the first of the six coin symbols.
Jason took out the item labelled healing unguent. It was a small, round tin, reminding Jason of the nasty rubbing medicine his nanna would put on scrapes when he was a kid. At least this tin wasn’t rusty, like the one that had been under Nanna’s laundry sink longer than Jason had been alive. Nanna was his maternal grandmother, while his father’s mother was strictly Grandmother. She was a retired otorhinolaryngologist and had no truck with rusty tins of ointment.
He took a closer look at the tin in his hand.
Item: [Healing Unguent (Iron)] (iron rank, common)
Topical healing ointment. Inexpensive concoction ideal for superficial injuries (consumable, healing).
Effect: Apply directly to injuries to heal. Effect reduced on bronze-rank or higher individuals.
Uses remaining: 5/5.
Unlike the tablet, the magic screens had no problem identifying the tin. Jason pulled off the lid to discover it really did look and smell like the ointment under Nanna’s laundry sink. There was a sharp, medicinal smell that cut through even the lingering stench of the dead creature. As for the contents, it was an oily substance that looked like butterscotch sauce made from dubiously sourced ingredients.
“How did I get ointment from a hamster? How did it come in a tin?”
With an exploratory finger he gently prodded the wound on his head.
“Ow.”
The oversized hamster teeth had dug into his scalp. The blood still ran down the front and side of his head.
“Can’t hurt to try, I guess. At least there’s no hair to get in the way.”
He took some of the ointment and smeared it carefully onto the wound, which immediately started to sting.
You have used [Healing Unguent (iron)]
Uses remaining: 4/5.
The stinging faded rapidly, the pain from the wound itself quickly following. Jason delicately poked the affected area, but while it was still wet with blood and ointment, he could find no trace of the injury.
“Sure,” he said. “If you’re going to have medicine appear out of thin air, why not make it magically potent?”
Jason placed the tin back in his inventory and pulled out the other icon. What appeared in his hand was a small, red-brown gem, in the shape of a teardrop.
Item: [Monster Core (Lesser)] (iron rank, common)
The magic core of a lesser monster (crafting material, magic core).
Effect: Common component for ritual magic and magic item creation.
“Oh, it’s for magic rituals. I’m apparently in a video game, now, so of course magic is a thing.”
Jason sighed as he put the monster core back in his inventory.
“Maybe I’ve had an aneurysm and this is just my dying brain trying to sort things out as it shuts down.”
He thought about that for a moment. His sister would be the one to find his body. She’d have her little girl in tow, coming to see Uncle Jason.
“Wow. Okay, now I’m actually hoping this whole, horrible experience is real. That’s the way, Jason. Indulge the delusion.”
Jason looked at the coin counter in his inventory.
“How do I take that out?”
He tried tapping on the number.
You have 10 [Lesser Spirit Coins]. How many would you like to withdraw?
“Um. One, I guess.”
A coin appeared in Jason’s hand. It was a washed-out blue colour, with a metallic sheen but feeling more like glass to the touch.
Item: [Lesser Spirit Coin] (iron rank, common)
An impure distillation of raw magic. (currency, crafting material).
Effect: Used to fuel lesser-rank magic items or as a ritual component.
Jason peered at the figure embossed on the coin. Looking closer, he realised it was an image of Jason himself, giving a thumbs up.
“What? My chin isn’t that big.”
He turned the coin to look at the other side, which was engraved with text.
PRODUCT OF JASON
G’DAY, MATE!
He ran a hand over his face. Somehow the coin itself was more ridiculous than the fact that he had pulled it out of thin air.
“I’ve definitely gone insane.”
* * *
When the slippery creature latched its teeth onto his inner thigh, Jason yelled as much as out of panic as pain. He still had no pants and that was much too close to the danger zone. He grabbed the long, slippery body, gripping down hard and yanking it off his leg. He screamed again as it took a chunk of thigh with it but kept his grip and started flailing the creature into the prickly hedge.
You have defeated [Flying Eel]
Defeat lesser monsters 9/10.
Jason dropped to the ground, pulled out a jar of healing unguent and started rubbing it on the wound, ignoring the blood coming out of it.
“Why can an eel fly?”
He looked down at the wound, high up the inside of his thigh. The eel had taken a decent gouge out of him, so the stinging lingered as the wound slowly closed. Even so, the ability to watch an injury vanish in front of his eyes was amazing. After nine encounters with different creatures, Jason had plenty of chances to see it, going through almost three full tins of the unguent. He used a full tin from one fight alone, against something called a malicious hedgehog.
One pleasant discovery was that he didn’t have to stand in the stinking smoke that came off them after they were looted. So long as he touched the creature he could back away before accepting. Even if he was far away from the dissolving creature, the loot went straight into his inventory. The only problem was that any of the creature’s blood that got onto him would dissolve away as well, giving Jason a full dose of the stink.
Every creature Jason looted gave out one lesser monster core and exactly 10 spirit coins. Most also produced additional, often nonsensical rewards. Tins of healing ointment were mercifully common, but mostly he received animal parts. That would have been understandable enough, given that he was killing creatures, but they arrived in his inventory already cut and packaged. The bundle of spines he received from the malicious hedgehog was bound with string, while the meat of the tyrannical pheasant came neatly wrapped in deli paper. The animal parts were all listed as crafting materials, some of which seemed to be for cooking. While he did enjoy trying new food, Jason wasn’t quite ready to put monster meat on his plate.
While he waited for the newest wound to heal, he checked the map again. He had a decent-sized chunk of the hedge maze mapped out now, but it was quite large and he’d met a lot of dead ends. He plotted out his next pathway and set out again.
* * *
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