Getting Up (part 5)

As he ate, Jack continued to puzzle over what to do.

There was also the very real reality that there was someone out there whose sole purpose was to kill him. Someone given the same three wishes he'd been given. Considering how Frumpkin talked about this individual, it sounded like they'd already made it to the world before him. Not to mention, they could have made better wishes than he did. But how long before? A week? A month? Or, god forbid, a year? If this person had a head start, they were probably stronger, maybe even much stronger than what he currently was, even if their wishes were the same as his. And they were probably looking for him. If they found him before he was ready to face them, well then, he was a dead man. Or, well, a non-existent man.

He wasn't unhappy with what he'd wished for. Hell, he wouldn't trade his companions for anything.

But, if he was honest, were he in the same position now, he probably would have made better wishes. I mean, he could have wished for command an entire kingdom. Or all of the most powerful magical artifacts in the world. You know, the kinds of ridiculously over-powered things you would ACTUALLY want if facing down an ultra-powerful villain. Instead, he let delusions of grandeur and raging hormones get in the way of what now seemed like basic common sense.

No, he needed to keep his head down. A little attention was fine, if for no other reason than being able to recruit the help he'd need for his ultimate task. But he needed to keep his true nature a secret from as many people as possible. The last thing he needed to do, especially with as green as he still was, was to paint a giant beacon on himself by announcing his existence to the world.

The people who knew had to be people he felt he could genuinely trust to have his best interest at heart. People he believed would be there for him when the end finally came, or, at least, would have enough goodness in them to keep their mouths shut, regardless of the threat against them.

Were Farien and Urien the kind of people he could trust with this kind of knowledge? Sure, they'd taken him and the girls in, and they'd fought together, but he didn't really know them. How could he be sure they weren't working for his opposition?

All of these ideas kept swirling around in his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more convoluted it all became. When he'd first started, it all seemed very simple. He was going to be ultra-overpowered and win everything with ease. He'd defeat his opposite without trying, and live happily ever after. That's how it was supposed to work. If this were like an anime, by episode 3 he'd have his powers figured out. By episode 7 he'd have amassed a worldwide reputation as the greatest hero alive, and by episode 12 he'd have vanquished the villain with ease and retired to godhood to spend the rest of eternity getting relentlessly laid. Cue fanfare. Roll credits.

And yet, since he'd arrived, he'd been ping-ponged and kidnapped by goblins after screwing up the simplest of spells, had barely been able to beat a group of gnolls, had once of his companions stolen away right in front of him by a villain, and fought in a battle with random monsters that almost killed him and should have led to him being bed-ridden for months. The only reason he was even able to be thinking about all of this right now was because of the fact that the Terminal had given him a freebie and spared him the months of painful recovery. But what happened next time, when the healing function was still on cooldown and he had a javelin buried in his spine?

He wasn't ridiculously overpowered. Hell, he wasn't even particularly exceptional. He was slightly above average, with access to a few things that others didn't. And if he didn't get his shit together and figure out how to get that through his fat head, he was going to end up bleeding out in a ditch somewhere because some random NPC with a bow shot him in the neck at 50 yards.