The updated panel hung in front of him, solid and golden.

He scanned through it, starting from the top. Level two, now. EXP required to get to level three amounted to 200 points, 35 collected so far, according to his stats which reflected his actions in clean figures.

Three cards in his active hand. Two suits launched, but a long way from completion.

Jokers locked until the condition became clear, whatever the system had in mind with this.

Storage capacity was at two out of twenty. One magic stone, and one slime gel portion, all invisible and weightless, stored away neatly in some place called inventory.

Strange thing to get used to, having everything stored without any tangible representation of the existence of any object within it, waiting until it needed to be put to use.

It would take time.

Finally, he glanced over his quest panel.

Kill 10 Slime Monsters ≈ Progress: 1 / 10

Underneath, untouched, and with the entire burden of the agreement in an empty void made of nothing else but his promise to an old man with blank eyes holding a wooden staff:

★Unique Quest★: SAVE THE WORLD

Two quests faced him at the same time.

He understood that slime monster quest was a growth quest, one which did not have anything to do with the old man’s mission, which would not bring him one inch closer to completing his part of the mission, and was merely a means of motivating him into getting stronger.

The system was trying to guide him towards a goal, something tangible and achievable while the big and truly scary quest was waiting.

The world will wait.

He needed to be worthy first.

’Nine more slimes. Where?’

Since his arrival here, he had seen precisely one slime monster - the one that had found him under a tree and tried to dissolve his hand.

One slime in thirty minutes of walking across the vast grassland was certainly not a lot, considering that there was absolutely no indication of any sort of concentration in a certain area.

He had no map, no compass, and no friendly NPC to lead him into a monster-infested hunting ground.

He looked behind him.

And stopped.

In the direction he had walked in were several shapes that he had not seen earlier, when he sat at the tree. Small, rounded, blue-tinted. Reflected the sunlight in a peculiarly translucent manner.

Slimes.

Several of them, to be more precise. Not a swarm, of course, not anything frightening, but still enough to do his job with, five or six roughly speaking. Moving slowly in a lazy fashion, seemingly not caring in the least about his presence at such distance.

He was staring.

’Where did they come from?’

He did not remember seeing them earlier. As he had already noted, he had watched the whole area carefully enough when he arrived here to notice, had it been a problem.

Now, however, they were right there, ready to complete his quest conveniently, and he would rather not question that. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

A slow smile appeared on his face - an unfamiliar gesture for this face. Clean, young, and unused to smiling. Nevertheless, his smile appeared very naturally.

"Time to kill some monsters."

With that thought, he raised his right hand again.

Again, the familiar ♥ 2 of Heart appeared between his index and middle fingers, glowing, warm, its flame sigil reflecting sunlight from both stars above his head.

This time, however, he felt himself doing that more confidently, like it was just another natural action.

Then he raised his left hand.

The new card appeared almost automatically at the thought of it. The ♥ 3 of Heart, Flame Lance, level one. He visualized the number, the suit, and the name - and it was there.

The card was different from the one he just received, even if only a little bit.

The golden base, the intricate border markings, the warm pulse of energy that all cards shared, the two small heart signs at its corners, the same as they were in his old world.

What was different, however, was its center.

Instead of carrying the same rounded flame symbol, which suggested gathering and releasing, the ♥ 3 of Heart had a spear sigil, made of fire, elongated, with its sharp point indicating movement. This card appeared like something made to go straight through any obstacles rather than hit them.

He held both cards up, one in each hand.

Left and right hands, fireball and fire lance. Two choices, two options, thirteen shots between him and an empty hand.

He was looking across the field at his victims.

They were moving. Slow, directionless, wobbling about the same way as they all seemed to do, apparently having no clue that someone was after them right now, and his stats were already far ahead of where they should have been at level one.

He started moving across the field to approach them.

The grass bent around his feet as he walked through, while double sunlight cast a long, diagonal shadow on his steps. Two cards warm in his hands.

His system panel vanished into thin air, unnoticed until that moment, leaving only grassland and distance between him and the first of his targets steadily shrinking.