Sid

Days slowly passed in a monotonous fashion. It had been a week since Dante had appeared in this medieval world. In the day he would work on repairing the Paradise Inn for the next traveler's season and in the afternoons he would spend time chopping wood.

Dante learned that the woodcutter was called Gromar. The woodcutter had taken a liking to Dante after the first day, giving him tips on how to improve his chopping. Dante had found that with the advice of Gromar, his speed of chopping logs seemed to have a marked improvement.

"You are a quick learner." Gromar suddenly said.

Dante was surprised. "I am a quick learner?" This was the first time he heard someone say that he was a quick learner. Wasn't he a legendary school delinquent who struggled with studies? How did he suddenly be judged to be a quick learner? Dante wondered in surprise.

"Yes. Your observation skills and hand to eye coordination are good. But your current bottleneck in increasing the pace of chopping logs is strength." Gromar said calmly, as he began to take logs and began to chop them as well.

"I'm not exactly known for my strength." Dante said. Back on earth he couldn't care less about strength. He had bodyguards protecting him. But now? In this world without technology, strength was everything.

"You can increase your strength, but it will take a lot of hard work. In a few years you can become strong and powerful like me." Gromar laughed. "If you want I can train you."

Dante shook his head. "I indeed would prefer to be stronger. But I cannot spare a few years to the endeavour. I have to find a way to return home." Dante said as he looked towards the sky.

Gromar shook his head. "In this world without strength is everything. Those who look for easy means to become stronger often either suffer a terribly or become the strongest people in this world. Neither fate is a good one."

Dante didn't reply. He couldn't possibly tell this woodcutter that he had to return home as quickly as possible. This was a fantasy world after all, slowly becoming stronger by training is something he had no patience for. He was only doing these menial labour so that he could save some money.

Gromar sighed. "You've chopped a few hundred logs. This will be enough for the incoming traveler's season. I don't need any more logs chopped for now. You can go to the guild and redeem your reward."

Dante nodded. Later in the evening he walked to the adventurer's guild and redeemed the reward.

"10 coppers for a week's hard work... I am really too poor." Dante sighed as he looked at the other guild tasks he could take.

[Task (Grey 1 star) - Investigate theft of the town elder's daughter's necklace.

Reward - One Request from Town Elder]

When Dante saw this his eyes lit up. May be he could request for a large sum of money from the Town Elder. From Martha's words, the town elder is a just and grateful man. He would not refuse the request.

"You are actually taking this quest?" The receptionist asked as she adjusted her glasses.

Dante nodded. "Yes, I think I might be suitable to do this. Can I get the details about the theft so I can begin investigating?"

"Very well." The receptionist nodded as she kept her book on the desk behind the counter and walked back to a cabinet to look for some documents.

At that moment, Dante's eyes fell on the book that the receptionist was reading, and his eyes bulged.

"This... My sister can't possibly be this cute? What? Isn't this the english translation of OreImo? Wait... what is a light novel doing here?" Dante's mind suddenly felt like he had an explosion.

At this moment, the receptionist returned with a collection of papers bound by a thread and handed them to Dante to read. Dante hid his shock and began to peruse through the papers.

To his surprise, he discovered that simply glancing through the papers, he had already memorized its contents.

"How is this possible? My memory was never this good!" Dante wondered to himself. "Could this be the so called special benefits?"

Thinking about this, he turned a few pages back to realize that his memory matched the details in the paper perfectly. After checking his memory in this manner a few more times, he handed the stack of papers back to the receptionist.

The receptionist was stunned by Dante's lackadaisical approach to the information that had been carefully prepared by the guild and her opinion of Dante was lowered a bit.

Dante noticed her subtle change in expression amd bitterly smiled. "I am a fast reader." He explained. "Actually miss, I wanted to ask you about the book you are reading."

"This..." The receptionist was suddenly embarrassed. This book was a rather weird book for her to be reading in public. In the town few people knew to read like her, so she didn't usually worry about being caught 'red handed' so to speak.

"Who wrote this book?" Dante asked. "I don't see an author's name on the book."

"Oh, this book is written by the prince of the Nomance Kingdom, Prince Sid. The prince is considered one of the greatest visionaries in our world. He is the pioneer of the 'light novel' format. Many of his light novels like this one are highly sought after in the continent." The receptionist explained with some passion. Her eyes were glowing with desire for the Prince Sid.

When Dante heard that he was flabbergasted. "Could it be that there are other transmigrators? Prince Sid is someone like me? And he seems to have plagiarized light novels from earth to gain some fame in this world."

Dante realized that suddenly this world might have just become much more interesting.

"I need to leave this town quick, I can't wait for travelers caravans and I need money. But before that, I need to learn more about this world." Dante thought to himself, before thanking the receptionist for her information and returned to the inn. He would begin investigating the theft of the necklace tomorrow.