Chapter 3

(A/N: I'm gonna write this chapter in first person. Tell me in the comments if you like 1st or 3rd person better.)

I quickly raced to the guard as he stirred in his sleep. His eyes snapped open as he heard the sound of my footfalls, but he was unable to react as I slammed my fist into his throat. The impact of my fist on his neck seemed to have completely crushed his windpipe. The man's throat looked unnaturally flat as I grabbed his wrist and activated [Touch of Midas]. The flesh beneath my own quickly started to turn to gold and spread.

The man's eyes opened wide with terror as the gold spread up his arm and towards his head. Soon he was only a statue still standing where he was when he had died. I noticed that his clothes had been turned to gold as well, but at this moment I was more focused on what I was feeling or rather the lack of feeling. I had expected killing another person to heavily affect me, but apparently not.

At that moment I knew that it was either him or me, and I would always make sure that it was me that came out on top. I wasn't sure if it was this body, the fact that I had already died, or if some caveman DNA surfaced during the fight, but for some reason, the fact that I had just killed another person didn't bother me too much. I quickly turned to the remainder of the camp and made sure to turn every last one of them into golden statues as well before they could wake up and attack.

In total there had been 10 bandits in the camp. The most important thing I learned though is that I can only manage around 7 or 8 uses of [Touch of Midas] right now. I had to wait carefully over the two sleeping figures for my energy to return back to me. Luckily it hadn't taken too long, but it was vital information for the future. I quickly looked to see how much EXP I had gained, but I was a bit disappointed to see that it wasn't much, only 1 EXP per person.

I guessed it made sense since they were just normal humans and not adventures. I assumed that more powerful humans and monsters would probably provide a larger amount of EXP than just normal humans. I didn't have a good grasp on what was a good amount of EXP to make skills and items yet. For now, I just had to continue on and collect as much as I could before venturing into Orario. There was still about an hour of darkness left, but I decided to just call it a night and sleep in the camp before continuing on tomorrow.

I grabbed some of the blankets and clothes that hadn't been turned to gold and laid down on the ground to go to sleep. It didn't take long for me to drift off to sleep due to the long day of walking I had been through as well as the fight to end it off. I awoke from a dreamless sleep around five in the afternoon judging from where the sun was in the sky. The sun seemed like it would only be in the sky for another hour or two so I started to prepare.

I hadn't noticed it last night but I was starving and quite thirsty as well. I quickly rummaged through the bandit's supplies and found that there was quite a bit of bread and salted meat present. I also found some large water skins that were still decently full. I looked around and was able to find a backpack in the camp and shoved as much food and water in it as I could, making sure to loot all their money as well.

I could of course turn anything into gold at any time, but gold isn't necessarily currency. I would still need money instead of gold if I wanted to buy things. I could sell gold or course, but I would have to be in the city first and there was also the problem of selling too much gold. I couldn't just sell tons of gold at a high price, eventually gold wouldn't be worth so much money if I sold it constantly. Plus people would want to know where I was getting all my gold from.

I could perhaps make something in the system that turned gold into money, but that was for later. For now, I just grabbed my bag and a random sword that I found lying on the ground and set off. As I walked I toyed with the weapon in my hands, thinking. In truth, I wasn't sure which route to go down, Sword or Lance. Karna was a lancer class servant and a powerful one at that, but that didn't automatically translate to me being good at it.

Lances and spears have better range and piercing power than a sword, but swords were well swords. Most cool and powerful characters used swords instead of spears or lances. Even the breathing forms from Demons Slayer I was thinking of using required me to use a sword. I could of course modify sword skills into lance skills with the system, but it might be more convenient to just use a sword in the first place. I was torn on the issue and decided to think more about it later, once I had entered Orario safely. For now, the sword would have to do.

For now, I walked through the woods, searching for any signs of bandits alongside the road. I walked up and down both sides of the trail for days on end searching for bandits to varying amounts of success. Finally, when I was approaching the one-month anniversary of arriving in this world I felt like I finally had enough EXP to create a skill that could help me join a powerful familia in Orario.

(A/N: Sword or Lance? Thoughts?)