A Story by a Crackling Fire

The next morning Roy jolted awake to the feeling of being watched. His eyes blinded by the morning sun, he covered them with his hand and used the shadow to see a figure looming over him.

"Oh good, you're awake!" The figure said as she stared at Roy, excited.

"Ugh... Terren, what the hell are you doing standing over me like that in my sleep?" Roy groggily spoke, still adjusting to the light.

"Umm... well... I kind of wanted to ask you if you could let me train with you? I know you were planning to start training again today." She asked as she stared into his eyes with a passion.

"How did you know? I only told Solus in English?" Roy wondered how she found out.

"Well, I have been listening in on your lessons. I can't really understand most of that language, but I arioo ooru some bits..." Terren slowly spoke, embarrassed.

"Ah, I see. You could have just asked and I would have happily taught you." Roy stated, standing up after collecting Inbellis from his bellybutton.

Placing his pet in its mobile home, Roy stretched out and felt his body up. He wanted to make sure there was no damage left over from the wounds.

"All better it seems! I gotta say having the body of an orc is very convenient if just for the natural healing speed." Roy commented, almost wishing he reincarnated into a troll instead.

"Alright Terren, you can join us. Though I'm just doing cardio, I plan to get my agility to sixteen before I evolve again." Roy said, looking at Terren for her response.

"Okay, that's fine with me! I want to learn everything that made you so strong!" Terren looked at Roy with a passion in her eyes.

"That's all? I wanted to live." Roy said stoutly before walking towards the fire pit for breakfast.

"Wha-" Terren started before cutting herself off. She quickly followed behind Roy, as she too was ready to eat.

...

"Alright Solus, what do you plan to work on today?" Roy asked his sibling, while she pondered. She had also taken a break the last week to rest and decompress.

She soon after tapped her arms, and began to stretch. Terren looked at her, then at Roy, who was stretching his legs.

"Before you exercise, it's very important to stretch. It relaxes the body and helps prevent injuries." Roy said as simply as he could with the Koboldese he knew.

"If you want to increase strength join Solus, if you want to strengthen your agility join me." Roy said, explaining that different exercises helped different stats.

"Okay, I think I'll stick with you today." Terren said as she began to mimic Roy's stretching.

"Like this, make sure you pull that out far enough, tense that." Roy slowly instructed her in different areas patiently. Terren slowly improved and adapted to the new techniques.

...

Around lunch time the three stopped to rest and eat. Terren was collapsed on the ground panting, while Solus and Roy had managed to stay on their feet. Roy had successfully raised his agility to twelve, but still had four points left to reach the achievement.

'Slowly but surely getting there.' Roy thought, as he wondered if he would receive any benefits for getting all three achievements.

...

After lunch, Roy stopped cardio for the day and picked up his hatchet. He wanted to practice his [Hatchet Arts] skill. "You should train with your gauntlets and obtain the [Gauntlet Arts] skill. It can help you greatly." Roy lectured Terren on the importance of skills after that, opening her eyes to the wonders that passives can do.

She walked over to Solus, and began emulating her techniques in order to learn the skill faster. Or at least that was what she hoped. She had yet to obtain it after practicing the whole rest of the day.

"Alright time for dinner and sleep, the ones who went to the river for water should be back soon as well." Roy said as he sat by the fire to rest his weary body. It was a long and exhausting day, but he had achieved much from it. His agility had increased by one in the morning, he raised his [Hatchet Arts] by one, and he managed to learn some more Koboldese from Terren.

Wanting to relax for a bit, Roy used [Keratin Growth] to make a small whittling knife and grabbed a nearby branch. Using his crafting skills, Roy slowly whittled the branch into a small teddy bear.

"W-w-whaaats th-th-that?" Solus came over to ask, intrigued at Roy's new toy.

"Ah it's called a figurine. I used this thing called a whittling knife to carve the wood, called whittling. I then whittled it into the shape of a teddy bear. Basically that is a cute baby bear toy." Roy slowly explained everything step by step to his interested sister. She looked on with shining eyes, as if asking if she could have it.

"Buhihi! Here I made it for you anyways." Roy laughed as he handed it over to Solus. A giant smile erupted from her puppy face as she ran off to play with her new toy.

Roy gave a light hearted smile back, as he watch his sister run off.

"Hey Roy, how do you know how to do all this stuff when you are just a child?" Terren stared at Roy, wanting to know what has been stuck on her mind for a while now.

"I doubt you'll believe me, but it isn't some big secret or anything. I used to be human." Saying this Terren's eyes shot open, she was shocked to hear these words, and wondered if Roy had simply gotten some words mixed up.

"Roy, did you maybe mix up some words? From the sounds of it, you were human?" Terren calmly asked, only to receive a confirmation of his earlier words.

"No, I don't think so? I used to be human and I died. When I woke up I was in the body of a lesser orclet abandoned in the woods." Roy just released even more shocking information to Terren.

"A LESSER?! YOU?!" Terren was once again shocked, she knew what the fate of a lesser being in these woods was all too well. Her own brother was born a lesser and immediately killed.

"Yes, in fact I still am, my first evolution I chose to become a lesser babirusa orc. Is it really that surprising? I mean I know I haven't seen that many lesser beings, but are we that rare?" Roy asked confused at her reaction. He never knew it was that big of a deal. He figured it was why his parents threw him away, But he never would have guessed it was enough to blow the mind of his new friend.

"Roy... do you understand what it means to be a lesser being in the Forbidden Forest?" Terren looked at him seriously.

"I mean, I always assumed it just meant I was trash meant to be discarded and forgotten." Roy bluntly replied.

Tears began to well up in Terren's eyes as she heard the blatantly honest reply of the child in front of her. Even if what he said was true, and he was a human before, he was simply a child now; lost in a foreign and scary environment. All alone with no one to rely on except his sister and a pill bug.

"H-how... how did you survive? Can you tell me?" Terren asked as she wiped away the tears in her eyes. She never agreed with the process of killing lessers, but she also never had the power or spare resources to stop it. She was only a newly grown adult herself.

"Ah sure, it's not anything crazy really. I woke up in the forest, alone and confused. I was too weak to really move. It took ridiculous effort just to lift my arm..." As Roy began telling his story, the other koblolds slowly gathered around him to listen. Many of them were surprised at the sheer willpower of the being in front of them.

When the story finally approached the cave, they realized just how much effort those two had put in to help them, even before the final fight.

"Thank you, Roy. Not just for telling us your story, but again, for saving us all. We knew it couldn't have been easy, but hearing the details, I can say with certainty that none of us would have been able to succeed in your shoes." Asandra chimed in after Roy finished speaking. All the other kobolds nodded their heads in agreement.

Roy looked at them for a minute, taking in their gazes. He slowly smiled and simply said, "Thank you all too." before he stood up and went to his bed to sleep.