Chapter 2

The first thing he needed to do was figure out where and when he was. Karna looked around at the surrounding trees, but that didn't help him whatsoever. The ground had no signs of traffic of any kind coming through here recently. All that was left was to climb a tree and get a view of his surroundings. He prayed that he wasn't too far from Orario, but there was only one way to find out.

He rolled up the sleeves of his roughspun brown shirt and grabbed the lowest branch and began to haul himself up. It when then that Karna realized how lucky he was to get a new body. He hadn't been fat before, but he certainly wasn't athletic. What was certain is that he would have had a much harder time without this well-toned athletic body. Climbing the tree turned out to be too easy in his new body and while he was in the canopy of the tree he was able to get a glimpse of his surroundings.

Luckily he wasn't in a forest, but he was in a grove of trees on a mountain. Off in the distance, he could see a plain that started at the base of the mountains. Located on the plain was a city with a tower that stretched high into the sky. The city was circular and the tower seemed to be in the dead center of the city. The sun was still high in the sky so Karna assumed he could reach the city by sundown. He knew what he had to do when he got there, but there were some problems.

First of all, he had no money, identification, or anything. Next, he would be in a city he barely knew at night with no money. Then he would have to find a god or goddess to accept him into their familia. Karna could deal with no money and shelter, but getting into a familia was going to be the hard part. He had no experience whatsoever, his new body could only take him so far but it couldn't change the fact that he had never used a weapon in his life.

He could show off his [Touch of Midas], but to his knowledge people without a falna couldn't use skills and he would rather not be thrown in prison for being a spy or something. That left Karna in a tricky position, but he had played Dark Souls and knew he had the presentence and foresight to get through this. After some thinking, he figured he could make a weapon mastery skill or something, but the problem was where he was going to get EXP without killing monsters.

He knew there were some surface monsters, but he had no clue where to look. He looked at the long line of people trying to enter the city when a new thought struck him. Killing people would probably give EXP, but he would have to be careful. He didn't know how many times he could turn people to gold before getting exhausted. Wait ... Gold? He was rich and he hadn't even realized it. He quickly sunk back into thought after his excitement had surged for a moment.

This solution solved all his problems, but there was a fair chance he would get destroyed by an adventurer. He was still only level 0 after all. He had his skill, but it was unclear how effective it would be yet. Also, there was the issue of pesky morality. He could kill civilians, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to take that step just yet. He was just a freshly reincarnated person after all. He had come from a more civilized society where killing wasn't the norm, so he decided to settle for hunting bandits.

Orario was a major city after all bandits were probably an ever-present issue. Karna quickly climbed down from the tree and set off towards the road leading to the city. He planned to find bandits by their camps and turn them to gold while they slept. He figured if they weren't awake the difference in strength would be less of an issue because they couldn't resist.

As he predicted it took the remainder of the day to near the city, but instead of heading for the gates he walked along the path heading away from the city. As he walked he thought about what skills and items he would try to make first before entering the city. Karna from the fate series had some pretty cool items and skills so he would try to get some of those, but that was for the future. In the short term, he needed skills to get him power and more EXP quickly.

Karna thought about some of the breathing techniques from Demon Slayer and bending from Avatar. They would both help him out while probably not costing too much EXP. There were still other options like regular magic skills and power systems from other series, but they would probably cost too much to be viable in the short term. He could get weaker versions of them, but he wasn't too sure about going down that path yet.

In the meantime, he hiked through another grove of trees that the path to Orario ran through. He made sure to stay a fair distance off the trail to look for the camps of any bandits that may be lurking out of sight of the main trail. Karna was actually surprised to see that he encountered a camp of bandits after a few hours of walking. The moon had just set and left the woods darker than usual when he caught sight of some light of the corner of his eye.

Approaching the fire slowly Karna was able to see that everyone in the camp was asleep including the guard that was probably supposed to be keeping watch. It was the perfect chance to strike, but he found himself hesitating. Suddenly the guard started to roll in his sleep, fearing that the guard would wake he finally made his move.