While Marco worked, he took the opportunity to look at his class closely for the first time. He had glanced over the notifications he had received just after the cleric had tried to seal his fate but not looked at them in depth. As he took his foster father’s hatchet and went in search of trees to chop down, he finally did.

In the overview, there was nothing that screamed evil, at least. It seemed more like it was a self-sufficiency class like Survivor, something meant for people who were going to go out into the rough greater world beyond the powers of kings and councils.

Doesn’t sound like I’ll convince anyone just by showing them the description, though. Best keep moving.

He chopped down some trees, all of them green. It didn’t matter for the purposes of a slapped-together class-assisted repair, though dry wood would have been better. The system would make up for slack in the process, at least according to the related skill.

The navigation skill, Traveler Tyrant, was similar. Right off the bat, Marco would be skilled enough at piloting to steer, maneuver, and dock the ship. No direction skill was mentioned, which scared him a little but wasn’t going to stop him. He figured he could learn on the go.

“You got it?” Garrick asked. “That was fast.”

“It’s a good class. Are all uniques this way?” Marco asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never met one before. They’re called uniques for a reason. Most people get a rare and upgrade from there. Why don’t you ask the system?”

Marco did. The system not only knew, but was willing to personalize the answer for him. It was a nice touch.

“It’s musketeer with some ship stuff tacked on. Is that good?” Marco asked.

“Musketeer is already quite a class. I fought one once,” Garrick answered.

“Really?”

“There’s a scar on both sides of my shoulder that swears to it. He pretended to be a normal swordsman until he was close. Damn near took my head off when he fired that gun the first time. Then I took his. I called us even after that.”

This story originates from NovelBin. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Marco wanted to hear more stories, he just didn’t have time. He got to work splitting the wood into strips and taking the bark off in sheets. The system did wonders with it. His hands worked almost by themselves as he slowly used tar, wood, and whatever else was handy to plug any gaps in the hull. By some trick of fate, the sails and rigging were still in good shape, intact within the sealed tarp they were stored in.

It took hours, not sped along at all by both the adults testing his combat skill any time he tried to take a break.

“Too bad we don’t have a gun. I can’t use one. You’ll have to keep an eye out for a drop,” Garrick said.

“You have that saber.” Tatric pointed. “You could give him that.”

“Can’t. It was made for me. Bound to me, in fact.”

Tatric whistled.

“That must have cost you.”

“It did. I’m regretting it now. Can’t send the boy out with nothing.”

“We won’t have to.”

Tatric took a tube off his back, something he normally held his fishing pole in so it wouldn’t get hurt in transit to and from his favorite fishing spots. Within the tube was a rapier that the dockmaster pulled out.

“Got that from a friend, a long time ago. It’s nothing special, but it’s well-made. Should suit you well for a while,” the dockmaster explained.

Marco took the long, wire-handled rapier from his foster father. He was surprised to see it has a system description. Most mundane weapons didn’t.

“Are you sure, old man?” Marco looked Tatric in the eye. “I could work something else out.”

“Just take it. It won’t do me any good here, and it might do you a lot of good out there. I should have given it to someone who needed it years ago.”

“Thank you, then.” Marco held the blade up as if he were fighting and was surprised to find Garrick already there, saber in hand. “You want to…”

“Fight, yes.” Garrick was already moving in, slashing his saber diagonally from all four directions as Marco struggled to keep up. “Let’s see what you have.”

The night went that way. Every hour or so he’d fight. In between, he’d patch up the boat and get it ready to sail. The older men took turns helping him, then loading up the food and supplies they had been able to scrape together.

“Make for an island. Any island. That ship is small enough to drag ashore once you do. Lay low, gather food, and even find a dungeon if you can. Dungeons are your best bet to get food, oddly enough. Generally, you can eat anything that moves in ‘em. After that, keep going.”

“Until when?” Marco asked.

“Until you are powerful enough to tell them all to sit down and shut up, Marco. If anyone can do it, you can.” Tatric heaved a breath of sadness and, for the first time in his life, hugged Marco. “Be safe out there boy. I can’t come with you. But you remember that place we used to fish? The special one.”

It had a name. For whatever reason, Tatric was keeping it secret.

“Yes,” Marco said.

“Once a year, around the same time we used to go, I’ll be there. Stop in if you can. If you can’t, don’t hurt yourself trying. An old man understands.”

Marco quietly resolved to move whatever mountains might be in his way of getting back to the old man, broke free of the hug, and dragged his new ship to shore.

The only role models Marco ever had shoved him into the sea in a tiny boat, then stood and watched as the boy set off to sea.

Marco took a look at his class one more time as the wind caught in the sails of the ship. He was a level one nothing, but he at least had some good starting stats. His childhood hadn’t been for nothing.

The stars were bright overhead as he finally moved out of sight of anything but the lights of the island. He was alone now, for better or worse.

“Oh well. Time to find an island.”

—

Two days later, Marco had found nothing. The first day out, he had rationed his canteen of water for fun, treating it like a game. The second day, it had been an absolute necessity.

“What kind of piloting skill comes with absolutely no sense of navigation?” Marco took another long hard look at the horizon, where there was water, water, and more water, but not a whole lot of anything else. “I know there’s another island this way. Knife Rock. It’s the next island over. I’ve seen it on maps a hundred times.”

He sailed for a few more hours, finding nothing. There was just enough room between islands in this island chain to thread the needle between them. What worried him now was that if he had truly lost his way, he’d be pointed at open ocean with no hope of fresh water or supplies for hundreds of miles.

If that happened, he’d be leather by the time his ship got anywhere and the old man would be going on his fishing trips alone.

Marco was just starting to consider turning around and taking his chances when something happened that took both choices away from him. There was a ship on the horizon. It wasn’t big, compared to some he had seen. Compared to The Foolish Endeavor, it was an ogre of a thing. As much as he wished the little ship was as fast as it was small, it wasn’t. There was a definite breaking point in the size and sail ratio a ship could have as it concerned speed, and he was well below it.

Of course, his tiny toy-sized cannon wasn’t going to do much against their two full-sized guns.

Marco sailed in a straight line away, hoping they were out for a pleasure cruise and not looking for him specifically. They tracked his change in course perfectly. For the next fifteen minutes, he pushed the ship as fast as it could go, getting nothing but a few skill levels out of the experience.

And then he was caught.