“No alcohol, my ass!” said Artyom in his mind as he began channeling magical energy. Once he gathered what he needed, he focused it into the form of a spell and silently cast it on himself.


    Purge Toxins.


    The magic flowed through his body, from his head all the way to his feet, swimming through blood vessels and the gaps between his cells. Any poisons inside him would be gathered, pulled together into a single mass, and deposited in his stomach for easy removal. It wasn’t even limited to traditional poisons; even alcohol and caffeine would be affected.


    Artyom braced himself for the feeling of nausea that would soon follow a successful casting. He didn’t want to follow through with the purging process in front of everyone, as projectile vomiting after accepting a delicious drink from a kind old woman would not win him any favors here. But he also wasn’t ready to risk letting an unknown mental toxin mess him up to the point he couldn’t do basic mental math.


    The man from Earth tightened the muscles around his stomach and waited. One second, two, …ten-


    “Is everything alright? Perhaps your Skill is having some trouble as well?” asked Ruba.


    Artyom exhaled and relaxed himself. “Oh sorry, everything’s alright.”


    There was no nausea. The spell fired off, but there were no toxins.


    Artyom looked back down into his drink, and began to ponder once more. It was the second time he saw someone being very foolish in this world, at least in this village. Maybe that was just the average intelligence of the people here? It might be the reason why this was a Fairytale world, ignorance being bliss and all that, but to Artyom it felt oddly rude to call them happy and peaceful because they were all dumb. He’d been to other Fairytale worlds before, many years ago, and the people there actively used their brains more than this.


    It was a mystery that Artyom didn’t have all the pieces for, as well as one that was honestly not his problem. Since he was thankfully unaffected by the stupid, he decided to listen in on the adventurers again.


    “So do you think there’s anyone in the village we can recruit?” asked Pireni to the rest of her party.


    “Well, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in the village cast any magic so far,” replied Sae. “And nobody seems all that keen on traveling as much as we do. They keep saying that whenever we tell them we’re adventurers.”


    “We already left our original homes to come here,” said Ruba, jumping in for a moment between her work at the large pot of soup in the back. “Most of us aren’t willing to make another such move so soon.”


    The trio looked down in disappointment.


    “Maybe we could find someone to help us out while we’re here?” asked Skeya, her soft voice cutting through the gloomy silence. “They might like us enough to follow even after we leave.”


    Before the conversation could continue, Artyom spoke up, “If you’re looking for a spellcaster, I happen to be one. A pretty good one too, in fact,” he added, humbly.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The three adventurers turned to face him, with Sae having to lean out of his seat to see him clearly. The looks of surprise, that were turning to ones of victory, were as if they’d already completed their quest and were being presented with the reward.


    Sae was the first to come back down to Earth, or wherever they were, and break eye contact. He coughed into a balled hand and stood up, walking past his two teammates up to Artyom and giving him an inquisitive look-over.


    “That-that’s wonderful to hear. And I’m glad you’re interested in joining us! But… will you be good enough for the team?”


    “Come on, Sae. We’ve been searching for a spellcaster forever,” whined Pireni. “Can’t we just bring him along and see how he is?”


    “But we’ve got two missions we need to take care of here, I don’t want to drag someone around before we can get back to the adventurer’s guild,” Sae replied back.


    “Sorry, but why the rush to bring me to the adventurer’s guild?” asked Artyom. “If I need to officially register first, then you can just call me a ‘helpful civilian’ in the meantime.”


    “To check your level, obviously!” said Pireni. “There aren’t any scryers here, so we’ll have to bring you back to where there is one. All of us have combat levels in the teens, so we need to make sure you’re up to snuff.”


    “I see,” said Artyom with a schooled expression.


    It was a quirk of many worlds with leveling systems to equate one’s number with their strength. Practice made perfect after all, but it also made levels, leading it to being adopted as the common metric. Especially when it was easier to measure and comprehend than a resume. Years of experience, achievements, and abilities; what was the point of trawling through all of those when someone’s capabilities could be understood from a single numerical value? Why wouldn’t it be a good indicator of competency?


    It wasn’t like Artyom was completely bereft of levels when he entered a new world.


    “In the meantime, why not just let me tag along?” asked the man from Earth. “It can’t do much harm if I’m just casting helpful spells from the back. You can see what I’m capable of then.”


    “I dunno, how would we know if you’re really a good spellcaster if we don’t know your levels?” asked Sae, his skepticism unsatisfied.


    “I think it’d be nice to have him along,” said a soft voice from the middle of the group. Skeya poked her head out from the side so she would be able to see Artyom. “This is our first mission fighting, so having another person with us would make things better.”


    The other two party members turned to regard her. They stared for a couple of seconds, which caused Skeya to look down in repentance, before Pireni clasped Skeya’s back while flashing her a grin.


    “That’s a great idea, Skeya! We’ll have him tag along with us to deal with the rats and see what he’s made of.”


    “Wait, wasn’t that my idea?” thought Artyom.


    Skeya seemed to calm down at that and returned the grin with a shy smile of her own.


    “Well, it looks like our minds are made up,” said Sae. “You can tag along with us to kill the rats, but don’t get in my way. I’m serious! My sword is sharp and I don’t want to accidentally hit you.”


    Everyone who was listening laughed at the joke, the adventurers, Ruba, and the two old men in the back. Even Artyom couldn’t help but chuckle at the sincere delivery.


    Things weren’t looking too bad. The muggers Artyom had met just outside of town had a higher level, and they were obvious amateurs, so this adventuring party was likely even less experienced.


    Sure, it made Artyom a bit of a hypocrite to judge the people here based on their levels, but he didn’t need to match their actual ability; he just needed to match their levels. And if level twenty was attainable without a proper foundation for the muggers, then someone with as much experience as Artyom would be able to skyrocket in levels through casual spellcasting. He would most likely be caught up to the others by the time they headed back to proper civilization.


    “Let’s go take care of some rats.”