World Isekai

The flame danced nicely as Mori stared at it next to the cat.

"Let me see the shop."

Amost instantly, before him appeared a shop with a lot of interesting items, ranging from 1 kindle to 10 in price.

The things he could buy varied, but the inventory was quite small.

It was all extremely basic things.

The [Food] Category was the one with most things to offer, with a wide selection of vegetables and meat.

There were mainly only ingredients, with almost nothing ready-to-eat.

Some things that were prepared, however, seemed to count as ingredients.

Most notably, pasta and noodles were there, something he had no idea how to make.

The next category was [Room] where he could buy things to add to this [0-0] level.

There was almost nothing in there, and what was seemed useless.

A bed that was mainly a stack of hay, a pillow which looked like a smaller stack of hay, torches which he already had, a drawer that was quite small and various other things that were in truly poor shape.

The only useful thing in there seemed to be the bonfire over which a pot was suspended, held by metal bars.

[Kindle: 4(-1)]

I need to eat eventually, the most basic fire with a pot will do just fine.

Mori set the bonfire in the middle of the room.

It slowly appeared, further from the Unkindled's flame, adding even more light to the otherwise dark room.

The sizzling and crackling started as soon as the logs materialized.

Mori approached it, he could feel the heat as he extended his hands toward it.

The pot hanging over the fire looked like it was made of old iron.

The next step was the [Food] category.

There, a stack of potatoes.

[Kindle: 3(-1)]

It hurt to spend for food this way, when he could've used curses to ignore most of his basic needs.

He sighed, buying the next necessities.

A bathroom kit and buckets of water brought his kindles down to 0, something unavoidable.

He set it up in the room he arrived in, but kept the water here. The room with the Unkindled would be his main hub.

The other one would be a sort of storage for things he might need access to, or perhaps somewhere to train, he didn't quite know, yet.

"Oh, what's this?" he muttered.

The shop has enough experience to go to the next tier. New items will be available. Congratulations Mori.

The Unkindled's voice resounded in his mind again, something he was getting used to.

The shop's visual layout had changed. When it first appeared, floating before him, it was a grey background with no outline, and mainly text and bubbles.

Now it had a thick black outline going around the whole menu and visually it looked slightly better.

When he selected [Tier 1], in the shop, a glowing white outline defined itself around the new items Mori had access to.

Instead of 'Basic' equipment, he now had access to 'Common'.

The basic weapons, for example, used to be a long stick, and rock at the end of a rope. Now, he had a wide variety of 'common' weapons like the one he already had.

"Alright. Let's try this recycler."

He walked toward the chest in the corner.

He opened it and got one of his torches out of his stash. He threw it in, the chest closing by itself as he did.

[Kindle 1(+1)]

Yeah, as expected.

"How much to get to the next tier for the shop?" asked Mori turning around.

For you to figure out.

"Why do you even offer a shop? And why are you in my room? This is weird, you know? No other dungeon does this, but you're pretty casual about everything yet reveal nothing."

I've talked too much already, I'm getting tired. It's all about kindle. Bring me more, and the rewards are greater. That's all I care about.

Mori rolled his eyes while shaking his head.

It made little sense.

This world was based on a game.

If he was on his character, on Elder Heir Online this dungeon would've been one of the most basic ones he ever went through.

Experiencing it in reality, however, was a different story, especially with permanent death.

He wanted explanations, and above all, to understand what was happening, but the wall he faced with the half-explanations truly annoyed him.

Why kindle? Other than it's in his name? What is it, even?

And one other thing was on his mind. The cat did mention he had a 1% chance of stumbling upon someone else in the dungeon.

How?

The village bordering the mountains wasn't populated enough to have a 1% chance of encounter in there, if everything was taken into consideration.

Mori walked over to the buckets of water lined against the wall, taking it with both hands.

His strength had indeed leveled up, he could feel it, but it was still quite low.

He arrived at the fire, filling the iron pot with it.

"Fuck."

He spilled some water, splashing the fire with it, but it was still going strong, to his relief.

It didn't take too long for it to start boiling.

He threw in two potatoes. That would be the day's meal.

He looked over his shoulder.

"Come get some," he said to the cat.

It opened its eyes, confusion showing through its expression, as it slowly got up, stretching.

It walked for the first time, getting next to Mori then laying down on the floor again, closing its eyes as soon as it could.

Once the boiled potatoes were done, he took the pot and set it on the ground next to him, waiting several minutes for it to cool down.

He took his [Common Dagger] and used it to get them out of the pot.

"There," he said.

Embark on a journey with m-vl-em,pyr

He set in front of the Unkindled half of one, it was still steaming hot, burning his fingers.

Mori at his own portion, while the cat nibbled at his.

It's quite bad.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," replied Mori.