First Bug
In which our protagonist makes a poor dietary choice and a stranger makes a worse one.
Kenji ate the berries anyway.
Not because he was stupid. Not because he had forgotten Orven's warning, which had been, in the thin man's careful way, very specific: do not eat anything without asking me first. He ate them because the berries were on the dish, and the dish was on the wagon step, and the guards were eating them, and Orven was eating them, and the part of his brain that had been doing the work for ten days was, for the first time in ten days, tired.
He had been running. He had been debugging. He had been, in the dry language of the system in his head, the only developer in the world, and the world had been a worse place for his absence than his presence. He deserved, he thought, one small bowl of berries.
He ate a handful.
The Compiler immediately screamed.
[CRITICAL: arcanum_berry detected. Mana signature: mutagenic. Effects on human biology: severe.]
[Estimated time to organ failure: 12 minutes.]
[ANTIDOTE REQUIRED.]
[Compiler note: developer has eaten the berries. Developer has eaten the berries. Developer has eaten the berries.]
[Compiler note: please advise. Please advise. Please advise.]
The system had, in a small way, lost its professional composure. The system was, in the driest possible language, panicking.
The bowl fell from his hands. His vision swam. The world tilted sideways, and he heard Orven shouting, and the sky, and then nothing.
He woke up with a pounding headache and a stranger's face inches from his own. The stranger was young, maybe early twenties, with messy brown hair, a healer's satchel, and the kind of expression people get when they are professionally unimpressed.
"You," said the stranger, "are an idiot."
"Thank you," Kenji croaked. "How bad was it?"
"Bad. Arcanum berries are mild poison to elves and deadly to humans. You would have died in ten minutes if I'd been five minutes later. What in the hells were you thinking, eating things without checking?"
"I checked. They were red. The guards were eating them."
The healer closed his eyes and took a very long breath. "The guards have spent their lives building up a tolerance. Outsiders do not have that. The locals know better than to offer these to strangers. You were a guest, and they got lazy, and you were an idiot for not asking first. Everyone failed here."
He said it matter-of-factly, like someone who had delivered this lecture before.
"Sorry," Kenji said.
"Don't apologize to me. Apologize to Master Orven, who paid me twice my usual rate to ride out here at midnight."
The healer stood, gathered his satchel, and walked out of the tent without looking back. Kenji lay in the canvas darkness, head pounding, and thought, very carefully, into the part of his mind that held the index: Note to self. The world is full of footguns. Most of them are disguised as helpful things. The pattern will not stop at food. The pattern will, in fact, accelerate.
[Note recorded.]
[Compiler note: this is, in a small way, the first rule of the new world. The system is proud of you for learning it without dying first.]
The system was proud of him. The system was, in a small way, a colleague. Kenji had not had a colleague in ten years, and the first one he had was a debug overlay inside his own skull, and the colleague had just told him, in the driest possible language, that the developer was learning the first rule of the new world.
But the rule, the rule was not a joke. The rule was, in fact, the most important thing he had learned in this world, and the most important thing he would learn in this world, and the thing that would, in time, save his life and the life of every person who trusted him, because the rule was not "the world is dangerous." The rule was "the world is full of things that look helpful and are not, and you have to assume every friendly surface is a trap until proven otherwise, and even then, be skeptical."
He had learned the rule by eating a berry. He had learned the rule by almost dying. He had learned the rule by being saved, at midnight, by a healer who had ridden out to a caravan in the woods for twice his usual rate.
[Skill: pattern_recognition (passive, range: 100m) acquired through use of new_function()]
[Compiler note: this is a function the developer did not ask for. The system is, in a small way, ahead of the developer.]
The system had given him pattern_recognition. The system was, in a small way, a teacher.
The next morning, Orven came to see him. The caravan master looked tired, but his sharp eyes were alert, and he was carrying a small leather pouch.
"The healer said you'll live. He also said you owe him, and that you should pay me back the gold I gave him."
"How much?"
"Forty silver."
Kenji did the math. He had no money. He had nothing. He had, in fact, less than nothing, because he now had a debt.
"I can't pay you back right now," he said.
"I know. So here's my offer. Work for me. Help me with the wagons, the cargo, the camp. You look like you can read and write. I need a clerk. Pay is two meals a day and a corner of a wagon. Debt cleared in two months if you work hard."
"And if I don't work hard?"
"Then you stay in debt, and I leave you in the next town." Orven's voice was not unkind, but it was not soft either. "I'm a merchant, not a charity. But I paid the healer for you, and that means I think you're worth something. Prove me right."
Kenji, who had spent his entire professional life being underestimated by middle managers, was suddenly very motivated to prove Orven right. There was a particular kind of insult in being called a clerk, and a particular kind of hope in being called worth something. He was going to make sure the second one stuck.
"I'll work hard."
"Good. We move out in an hour. Don't eat anything without asking me first."
Orven left. Kenji sat in the tent, in borrowed clothes, with a pounding head and a debt he did not know how to pay, and he thought: "Okay. New plan. Be useful. Survive. Level up. Get out of debt."
He was, he realized, doing the same thing he had always done. The same plan he had followed in Tokyo. Show up. Be useful. Don't make waves. Get paid. Go home. The only difference was that the truck that had killed him in Tokyo was, in this world, the size of a forest, and it had been running for a long time, and he was going to have to learn to debug it from the inside.
The Compiler pulsed, in a tone that was, in a small way, ahead of him.
"Orven's signature is consistent with the description 'merchant, not a charity, and not unkind,'" the system said. "He paid the healer for you. He paid twice the rate. He did not, in the dry language of the system, do that because he is kind. He did it because he has seen the Compiler before, and he knows what the Compiler can do, and he is, in a small way, investing."
Investing. The merchant was investing in the developer. The developer was, in a small way, an asset.
The Compiler had opinions. The Compiler had, in three days, become the only colleague the developer had. The compiler was, in a small way, ahead of the developer.
The horn sounded in the distance. Closer than before. The same brassy, mournful note.
The system logged the horn. The system did not have an entry for the horn. The system would, in time. The system was, in a small way, patient.
The caravan would move out in an hour. The caravan would go east, toward a town called Oakhaven, and the town would have a clock, and the clock would be broken, and the broken clock would be, in a way Kenji was going to spend the rest of his life understanding, the first real bug in the new world.
The system hummed in the back of his mind, patient, ready, and for the first time in ten days, not waiting.
"You are not the user," the system said, in a tone that was, in a small way, proud. "You are the developer. The world, with time, will be too."