Chapter 124: Side Quests
The next morning, Simon started to get ready for his trip into the pit, but as he cinched up his armor, he changed his mind and decided that there was no way he could let Freya see him like this. It was exactly the same feeling he’d had when he’d decided not to go to his 10-year class reunion a couple of years, well… a couple dozen lifetimes ago now.
Then, it had been more about having nothing to show for himself, but now it was simply because he didn’t like the look of himself in the mirror. “This is exactly how she’s always seen you, Simon,” he told himself as he stood there, bulging out of his armor in unsightly places. “That’s not important. It’s not like you’re going to hook up with her or anything.”
The words were true. He was, in fact, not going to hook up with her or anything. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if he could, even if she’d been interested in him. Because she’s not my Freya.
He sighed, conflicted about what to do next. Some part of him wanted to hike into the woods, go climb a mountain, and wrestle with a bear or something, while the rest of him just told himself to get over it and start this run already. He knew from very recent experience that living a meager life off the land for half a year would be enough to transform him from more than a little overweight to dangerously underweight, so if he just did that for two or three months, he’d probably reach peak Simon.
At this point, he really didn’t mind when he died and lost his gold or his weapons. Even his beloved backpack was replaceable, but being forced back into the physique? It was definitely the worst part of the experience and, ironically, the biggest motivator to avoid needless deaths. After a few weeks or months of saving people and killing monsters, he started to feel like a hero, but until then, when he was like this, it just felt like he was faking it again.
The mood persisted. So, Simon went outside and hacked down enough tall grass to bundle together into something resembling an archery target so he could practice because he was definitely slipping where arrows were concerned. It wasn’t hard. It was like thatching a roof; they didn’t need to hold back the rain. He just needed to weave thick sections together so that he could stop an arrow.
He could have just shot them at a tree of course, but there would be no way to get those arrows back. Since this would be his first run in a long time without a ready source of coin, he imagined he’d be hunting more than usual, which meant saving and reusing arrows where he could.
He loosed arrow after arrow at the target for the next few hours, doing pretty good and only losing a couple to the tall grass while he contemplated everything. I can’t complete the pit unless I finish the early levels so that they don’t screw the later levels up and reset them, but I can’t get much in the way of supplies unless I keep the early levels right where they are. I guess I finally unlocked hard mode.
He laughed at that, but truthfully, he still didn’t understand why anyone hadn’t completed the pit by now. It was awful and confusing but not that hard. He’d been a complete idiot for the longest time and managed to complete the first couple of floors by accident. Now that he was methodically trying to understand and finish them, they were dropping like flies.