Dennis stood outside the house, looking in the direction of the park, at the Arm-statues that surrounded the tree-statue.

  “So, uhm… Where are we…” Gareth asked.

  “I don’t actually know,” Dennis admitted. “But I have a plan.”

  He had a vague outline of a plan.

  “To the tree, I guess,” he muttered and started walking. Gareth followed.

  There were a few pieces missing, but the basic idea felt like it could work. Gareth’s problems were that he reached the idle leveling cap, having no more rested exp to spend, so to say, and that the void that surrounded them was slowly but constantly consuming chunks out of him.

  It made sense then that if the guy got himself some fresh exp and a place where he could stay without being erased out of existence, he would be fine. Ish. Dennis didn’t know if it was possible to reverse the process or restore the stats that he lost, but it didn’t feel like there was anything stopping Gareth from leveling up again and investing the new free points back. In Mind, preferably.

  He stopped about a hundred yards away from the statues, deposited Lily nearby, and threw a dagger at the tree, noticing the spin and the lack of air resistance. He missed.

  “Go fetch the dagger, will ya?”

  “Okay…”

  A hundred yards was quite further than reasonable for an accurate dagger throw, but with the lack of air the thing flew with a surprising stability so Dennis hoped that with a bit of practice he’ll be able to figure it out.

  He waited for Gareth to come back, took the dagger back from him and threw it again. Still a miss, but closer this time.

  “Gareth, fetch.”

  While he waited for the man to return he contemplated what must be done.

  Where there were skill-places, there were Arms. A convenient package of both exp and a resting place with inherent void-resistance. Jenny got herself a level just by passing bullets to her grandpa, so all that Dennis had to do was make Gareth pass him some bullets while he killed an Arm. Those things gave some freakish exp judging by how Lily just skipped a level, so there was a good chance that the dude will be able to level up just from assisting with the battle somehow, considering how weak he was.

  And he’ll get a resting place to chill at, until Dennis figured out the whole inter-world travel thing.

  Easy. Totally doable. Absolutely not a pain in the ass.

  He threw the dagger again, finally embedding it into the tree. Gareth went to fetch it without asking. A very compliant person, Gareth was.

  For a moment he wondered if he made the right decision. In the grand scheme of things, Gareth was useless, and saving him would be both supremely risky and not rewarding. Maybe it wouldn’t even work and the guy would still be a vegetable even with the influx of new exp and a safe place. And even if it worked, that was just prolonging his death, no? Dennis was wasting time and risking the life of the far-away target by trying to save the guy.

  The far-away target could go fuck itself.

  Why the hell would he bother with hiking god knows where when there was a person who needed help right here? Because it was probably more important, according to his skill? Unlike the doomed hobo?

  Yeah, no. Fuck that. Heroic Senses might think that Dennis shouldn’t bother with the guy, but his heroic senses disagreed. There was a person who needed saving in front of him, there was no way he would just leave, wasted time or not. And anyway, time wasted on saving a hobo was never wasted. Saving the hobo was the point of this whole heroing thing that he picked for himself.

  He was feeling pretty good about what he was doing right now, thank you very much.

  And it wasn’t like Lily was getting worse. Honestly, she looked a bit better, though he was probably imagining it.

  The dagger flew again, embedding perfectly in the same gash.

  Two questions had to be answered for the plan to work. First, how the hell does he kill an Arm? Second, how the hell does he kill an Arm in a way that would make a useless immortal hobo meaningfully help him?

  “Hey, Gareth?” he asked as he retrieved the dagger again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is your skill passive?”

  “Ah…No, it says… active.”

  “So it works only when you have the mana?”

  Gareth nodded.

  “Do you have the mana?”

  “Ah, no… It takes time…”

  “So it doesn’t work right now?”

  “I don’t… think so…”

  Yep, great. Scratch the ‘immortal’ part out of the ‘useless immortal hobo’.

  He took a small step towards the far-away person, slipping in superspeed, and threw the dagger again, trying to notice the difference. The weapon flew much faster, embedding deeper into the already existing gash with a satisfying thump. Dennis felt like Robin Hood at that point, but with daggers.

  Just like that, he had mastered the art of throwing daggers. Honestly, he couldn’t understand the people who poured their lives into stuff like that. Just throw the thing and don’t miss, yes?

  Half of his weaponry mastered, he took out his sword. Come to think of it, he probably should’ve done this sooner.

  “What… are you doing?” Gareth asked quietly as he came back, watching Dennis wave his katana with slow motions like he was an ancient Chinese master on a mountain.

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  “I’m mastering the blade,” Dennis murmured with his eyes closed, focused on the distribution of weight and inertia as he slowly changed stances. He invented those stances himself, so they were good.

  A few minutes passed in silence as Dennis slowly fought some invisible enemy, katana in left hand, right hand making a cool ninja hand sign.

  “Is it working?” Gareth asked, transfixed on the grace that he was witnessing so much that his speech got better.

  “I am… not sure,” Dennis answered, opening his eyes. “It’s still just a sharp piece of metal that you use to cut things. Or stab, I guess? If there’s some hidden mastery there, I’m not getting it.”

  / - /

  Somewhere, far away.

  The Sword Saint snapped out of his meditation, eyes widened as if from a slap. Nearby, his sword sang a song of longing, seeking for a master that wasn’t there.

  / - /

  “Yeah, no, this kata shit is useless,” Dennis concluded. “I don’t think I got any better. Let’s just assume that I’ve mastered the blade, yes?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Gareth swiftly replied, all his wandering attention collected into singular focus for a moment, but the dimness was already returning back to his eyes. “I think you did… master it…”

  “I know, right?!” Dennis couldn’t help but agree, glad to finally find a soul that acknowledged his stance on the art of fighting, even if that person was a half-crazy hobo. “Like, what the hell are people doing spending years and decades trying to learn this stuff? It’s just a sword! You stab people with it!”

  The hobo emitted a mumble of enthusiastic support, too far-gone to form proper words, but it was the emotion that counted, and it came from the heart.

  With that, Dennis became a master of all the weapons in his possession, thus finishing his preparation for the fight with an Arm.

  Or, well, it was more or less everything that he could do to prepare himself. He couldn’t find a way yet to cheese the fight, the monster was too straightforward and didn’t have any obvious weaknesses as far as Dennis knew, so the only way to win was to just get good and be better.

  Honestly, Dennis still wasn’t sure if he’d be able to beat the thing, but he was as prepared as he could be, and he had to. Otherwise Gareth would just die, and there was no world in which Dennis would allow for that to happen.

  He was rested. He mastered his weapons. He had a way to keep his buff active throughout the fight. Since his level up he would have an overwhelming advantage in speed, 33 Dex compared to 25-ish that the Arm had.

  It would mean nothing if he didn’t have enough damage.

  But he had mastered the blade.

  All that was left to do was to go and kill the thing. While making Gareth help him, somehow.

  “Hey, Gareth, you still don’t have the mana for your skill, right?”

  “No… I don’t…”

  “How long does it take to recharge?”

  “Ah… For a while… Why… ask?”

  “No particular reason.”

  He picked Lily up and gestured to the man to follow him.

  “Where… are we going?” Gareth asked after a few minutes, struggling to keep up with Dennis’ confident stride because he was a cheaty cheater who used the buff from time to time when the direction was right.

  “We’re looking for an Arm,” Dennis answered without slowing down, trying to remember some sort of historical landmark in his hometown that would qualify. The cemetery was probably eaten by the cracks. The supermarket? Nah, no way. The fountain? Famous, but not that old or impressive. The–

  “Arm… Monster?”

  “Yes, the monster. Didn’t I already explain to you what an Arm was?”

  “I know… the place…”

  Dennis stopped in his tracks. Gareth bumped into him, finally catching up.

  “Then why the hell didn’t you say anything?!”

  “I… Ehh…”

  “Understandable. Well, lead the way then.”

  “Ah, okay… It’s… It’s close…”

  Dennis thought about interrogating Gareth a bit more on the way, to see if the guy knew anything interesting about the goblin spawn point or the people who floated in the air, but thankfully he remembered who he was dealing with before he opened his mouth. It would’ve been an exercise in frustration, pure torture the likes of which he wouldn’t wish on the most hated of enemies.

  So they walked in silence as Dennis decided to postpone the interrogation until Gareth got himself some sorely needed points in Mind and learned how to speak again.

  He just hoped that the guy wouldn't get lost.

  “Aren’t we going in circles?” he asked after they made a fourth consecutive turn to the right, the identical streets and houses providing no easy means of navigation whatsoever.

  “Ah… No… We just… Need to follow the signs…” Gareth pointed at the nearest replica of a road sign.

  “You’re shitting me,” Dennis deadpanned. “The signs are empty, there’s–” He stopped mid-sentence, noticing that the sign was very much not empty.

  ‘Supermarket,’ it said in a crude finger-made engraving, with an arrow at the top.

  “Huh.” Dennis gathered his thoughts. “Clever. Didn’t know you can do clever.”

  “Made them… in the beginning. Now… I just follow…”

  “That’s how you spend your time? Just following the signs that you wrote?”

  “Yes…”

  “Like, all the time? You’re just walking around following arrows that you drew yourself?”

  “Ah, yes…”

  “Well, that’s just sad,” Dennis murmured, now looking around and trying to spot other signs. “And I bet you’re stuck in a circle. It would just make sense with your luck.”

  “I… enjoy it,” Gareth said almost defensively, eager to protect his chosen way of passing time. “It gives… direction…”

  “That’s what signs do,” Dennis agreed. “But you should find a better hobby, man.”

  Dennis was wondering if the local supermarket was actually somehow an important place and thus their destination, but curiously Gareth turned left on the next sign, one that said ‘school’, and after a while turned left again, following the arrow that pointed to the ‘park’.

  “Dude, we’re totally looping back,” Dennis shared an observation. “Just admit that you’re lost. I get it. It can be hard, when you think you know the way. You should learn to learn from your mistakes. In situations like these it’s important to realize when you have to admit defeat and send someone expendable to climb the roof. How good are you at roof climbing, by the way?”

  “Ah…no…” Gareth looked distraught but there was a hint of focus in his gaze. “It’s… correct. I… remember…”

  “Nah, you’re full of shit.” Dennis wasn’t buying it. “Sure, everything’s unrecognizable, but just by those signs I’m pretty sure I know where we are. And between the park, the school, and the supermarket there’s really nothing important or noteworthy besides–”

  Dennis stopped.

  He counted houses around him, carefully noting the exact number of them before and after the turn and trying to remember how many there were supposed to be. The number didn’t match. Nothing at all differentiated this street from any other.

  “You’re… going?” Gareth looked back at him, confused from the sudden stop, the perpetual state of confusion that his face showed somehow managing to become even more prominent.

  “Uhh,” Dennis snapped back, trying to dismiss the suspicion. It didn’t make sense. “Yeah, sure, lead the way. You’re totally climbing the roof if we end up in the park again though.”

  They didn’t talk more on the way, Gareth more than incapable of holding up a conversation and Dennis busying himself with counting turns to try and figure out where exactly they were in relation to his memories. While towns in this half-imaginary world weren't exact copies of the real thing, they retained the same general shape, and some streets were almost recognisable, especially the bigger ones.

  “You’re shitting me,” he muttered when he saw the sign, exactly on the turn where he half-expected to see it.

  ‘Monsta,’ it said in almost illegible writing, pointing to the left. One of the more recent signs, then.

  He grabbed Gareth by the collar to stop the guy from accidentally aggroing the Arm if it was nearby, and carefully peeked around the corner.

  The Arm was sitting on the porch, a hundred or two yards away, doing nothing as they usually did. The house differed only slightly from the others. The grass in the lawn was greener. Paint on the walls not as pristine. A small wooden fence surrounded the building, with a plank broken off.

  He remembered breaking it.

  It was his house.