James sat cross-legged on the thin sleeping mat Inara had been able to provide him. Desiree creeped across the living room floor. Her steps were light, and she avoided creaky floorboards with the expertise of someone who’d been doing it all their life.

  She reached out curiously and poked the Hero in the cheek.

  James’s eyes flew open and he jerked away, slamming his back into the wall.

  “Ah, what the hell?!”

  Desiree giggled. “Does everyone sleep sitting up in your world? That’s so weird!”

  He glared at her. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was meditating.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What’s meditating?”

  “It’s where you sit in one spot and try not to think about anything.”

  Desiree copied his sitting position and closed her eyes. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s hard. Why were you doing that?”

  “It is,” James chuckled. He hesitated then, not sure how to explain that he’d read a book once where someone could improve their magic by meditating and focusing on the flow of mana through their body, but the book had actually been complete fiction, and the only reason he thought it might work was that this world still felt like fiction, too.

  “Some people in my world believed that meditating could help people understand their personal magic better. Sort of like working out to strengthen a person’s muscles.”

  Desiree cocked her head. “What’s working out?”

  James sighed. Right. In a world where people increased their strength through stat points, maybe they didn’t do that.

  “Breakfast is ready!”

  James and Desiree both scrambled to their feet and practically raced to the table. Inara laid out a spread of oatmeal and fruits. It wasn’t the kind of thing James at much of back home, but as soon as he took his first bite he knew that that was about to change. He wondered if Inara had system-aided Skills in cooking, or if the food in this world was just that good.

  Either way, he devoured his meal.

  Once they were done eating, Inara leaned back and fixed him with a calculating gaze. “Remind me what your first quest is?”

  James pulled the information up.

  [-] Quests

  [-] Keep the Doctor Away!

  - Mrs. Fitz needs six apples, and for some reason she doesn’t want to do it herself! Maybe she’s allergic to trees? Maybe she’s lazy? Either way, better hurry before she needs a seventh!

  [+] No Stone Unturned

  [+] To Rule or To Ruin

  Inara’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Desiree, go around town and see if anyone has any apples they’re willing to part with.”

  The little girl pouted. “Aw, mom, can’t I go with you?”

  “Absolutely not.” Her tone brooked no argument. “You nearly died the last time you went apple picking.”

  “I was just a kid, then!” the kid whined. “I’d do way better now, come on!”

  Inara acted like she hadn’t heard. “Start with Mr. Harding, he usually keeps one or two on hand.”

  Desiree stomped out the door.

  “And be polite!” Inara called after her. She sighed.

  James chuckled. “Kids, right?”

  He’d always wanted to be a father. Back home, he’d liked the idea of settling down with someone and having a child that reflected his personality traits, mingled with the traits of a person he loved. It must be an incredible experience to raise a child; to know someone for their entire life, to teach them the very basics of what it meant to be alive, then to watch them grow and change and make their own decisions.

  James thought it must be very confronting. Being a good father would require a deeper understanding of right and wrong and being able to articulate that to a brand new person.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The trouble was, bringing a child into the world was a team effort, and James had never felt that pull with someone else. There had been a few women he’d been attracted to over the years, and there had been women he respected, but the one time those two feelings overlapped, she’d been married already.

  No luck there.

  “Have you been apple picking before?” Inara asked. She watched him carefully.

  “I have,” he said quickly. As a child, his mom had taken him every fall. Her favorite pie was apple, but she insisted on only ever eating it homemade.

  Inara nodded. “Good. We should get going before Desiree returns.”

  “I— what? Didn’t you want to know if Mr. Harding had any apples, first?”

  Inara was already strapping on some light armor, and she slung a pack over her shoulder. “No,” she said simply. “That was a distraction.”

  “Oh! Um. Alright, then.” Definitely a different parent/child dynamic than James was used to, but he wasn’t in a position to argue. He didn’t have any armor besides the clothes on his back, so while Inara got herself ready he focused on reattaching his sword to his belt.

  Inara opened the front door carefully, then poked her head out to verify that the coast was clear. She waved James along, and the two crept out of the house and around the back. Inara didn’t relax again until they reached the forest.

  James looked around. He hadn’t seen anything resembling an orchard the day before, but he also hadn’t explored the area very much.

  “You know, I haven’t gone apple picking since I was a boy,” he said conversationally as they walked. He felt nostalgic about the activity, and he realized with some surprise that he was glad to be going with Inara.

  She looked at him, surprised. “Is that so?”

  The orchard wasn’t far. The randomness of the forest trees gave way to the orderly lines of an apple orchard, and as they approached, James instinctively scanned the trees for the best, brightest, roundest apples.

  He frowned. In his experience, apple trees were overflowing with apples and the ground littered with fallen fruit.

  In this orchard, however, he could barely pick out two or three apples per tree. The trees themselves looked like they might have been pulled from a storybook; they had squat brown trunks and round bushy crowns.

  Right, he reminded himself. Magic world is magic.

  Inara lowered herself into a crouch and readied her scythe. James followed suit, although it looked like they were alone in the orchard. When nothing else moved, she plucked a rock from the ground and threw it as hard as she could at the nearest tree.

  The tree shivered. Leaves trembled and branches shook. Bark cracked open to reveal two eyes, a protruding nose, and a gaping mouth. It leaned back as far as its trunk would allow and bellowed up at the sky.

  Your party has entered combat!

  Ohhh, James thought. Several curiosities clicked into place, chief of which was why they’d left Desiree behind. Inara had known they were going into combat, and she didn’t want her daughter involved.

  Inara was a higher level than James, so she took her turn first. He watched in frozen, not-your-turn stasis as she hefted her scythe and ran at the tree. She slashed at the trunk, and her blade was so sharp it sliced cleanly through. Then, she had just enough time to dart away.

  The tree’s health bar lowered, but not by nearly enough. It would take several more hits to kill it, and James wasn’t sure what it was capable of.

  He considered his sword. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d want to swing at a tree, either. Instead, he pointed at the tree and said, “Mana Bolt.”

  A blue-white laser shot from the tip of his finger and landed directly onto the tree’s left eye. It screeched and waggled its limbs.

  Critical hit!

  The tree lost another large chunk of health.

  Enemy turn!

  The tree shook itself. Its limbs reared back as far as they would go, looking like someone had taken a giant hair dryer to it — then flung forward. Leaves shot from the tree like a gatling gun.

  The cloud of leaves was too wide for Inara to dodge completely, and there was nothing to hide behind. But she’d clearly done this before. She turned to her side so only her profile was in line with the attack.

  Sharp-edged leaves whipped against her side like ninja stars. They sliced through the fabric of her clothes and left thin, bloody gashes. Where they hit her straight on, they embedded into her skin and stayed put.

  James grimaced. That had to hurt.

  She shook it off. James knew well enough that the pain faded as soon as the enemy turn was over, but he was still impressed by how quickly she was able to make the mental shift towards attacking. It was her turn next, and she didn’t hesitate to repeat the scythe attack that had served her so well before.

  James noticed that she held her scythe low to the ground. It made sense that that was a comfortable way to wield the weapon, but if she lifted it a few feet higher, the blade would line up with the face of the tree and give her a critical hit. Did she not care? Or did she not know?

  Your turn!

  There wasn’t time to talk about it. He hadn’t noticed it on his last turn, but there was a significant difference between this battle and the tutorial: a time limit for each of his turns.

  That was terribly disappointing. James had imagined the strategic benefit of infinite time between turns. Then again, it wasn’t so nice to imagine the enemy having that kind of time.

  Either way he had to move, and he’d be lying if he said the tree’s face didn’t freak him out.

  “Mana Bolt.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Mana Bolt!”

  Again, nothing.

  James checked his mana. Shit, it was too low!

  He grabbed his sword and yanked it from its sheath as he ran. Or tried, anyway. The angle was wrong, and the sword stopped halfway out.

  He yanked again, nearly tripping over his feet in the process, and then it was free.

  James closed in on the apple tree. He reared back to swing with all his might —

  And time slowed. The tree’s eyes gleamed with vicious delight.

  Enemy turn!