The first week taught me that traveling with strangers was nothing like the stories made it sound.
In the tales Old Garrett used to tell at the mill, travelers bonded over shared campfires, swapping stories and forming friendships that lasted lifetimes. They sang songs together, shared their dreams, became companions on the road. But reality, I discovered, was far more awkward and uncomfortable than any story had prepared me for.
The elderly man from the coach—whose name I learned was Master Hendricks—spoke in clipped, formal sentences that made every conversation feel like a business transaction. The two merchants who joined us at the first waystation, brothers named Carver and Finn, talked only to each other in a rapid-fire dialect I could barely follow. And when a young woman named Sera boarded at the town of Millford three days into our journey, she took one look at me, offered a polite smile, and promptly buried herself in a leather-bound book.
I tried. I genuinely tried to make conversation.
"The weather's been good for traveling," I offered to Master Hendricks on the second day.
"Indeed," he replied, and returned to his ledger.
"Those are interesting tattoos," I said to Carver, noticing the swirling patterns on his forearms.
"Family marks," he said shortly, then turned back to his brother.
With Sera, I managed slightly better. "What are you reading?"
She glanced up, and for a moment I thought I saw genuine interest in her eyes. "A treatise on dungeon ecology. Are you interested in monster behavior?"
"I—yes, actually. I'm hoping to become an adventurer."
"Oh." Her expression shifted to something I couldn't quite read. "Well, good luck with that." And she returned to her book.
By the fourth day, I'd stopped trying.
Instead, I focused on what I could control. Each evening, as the coach joined up with whatever trade caravan was heading in our direction, I would wait until camp was established, then slip away into the surrounding wilderness with a coil of wire and a handful of wooden stakes I'd purchased at Millford.
Setting snares was something I understood. The wire had to be positioned just so, at the height where a horned rabbit's head would pass through. The loop needed to be wide enough not to spook them, but tight enough to catch and hold. I'd learned the basics from watching the hunters back in Willocreek, though I'd never had much opportunity to practice.
Now, alone in the gathering dusk with only the strange sounds of the transformed wilderness around me, I found a kind of peace in the work.
Horned rabbits—or "dungeon hares" as some called them—were one of the few monster species that could breed outside of dungeons. No one quite understood why. Priestess Mara had once explained that they carried just enough residual dungeon magic to sustain themselves in the wild, but not so much that they needed a dungeon's concentrated energy to survive. They were pests in farming communities, breeding faster than normal rabbits and capable of shredding crops with their wickedly sharp horns.
They were also delicious, and their pelts sold for decent coin.
The first morning I checked my traps, I found two rabbits waiting. Both were dead, caught cleanly by the neck. I felt a surge of pride as I reset the snares and carried my kills back to camp, their bodies still warm in my hands.
The caravan's cook, a gruff woman named Marta who traveled with a spice merchant, looked up from her morning fire as I approached.
"Caught something, did you?" She eyed the rabbits with professional interest.
"Yes, ma'am. I thought—if you wanted them for the pot, I mean. I don't need—"
"They're good specimens." She took them from my hands, examining the clean kills with a practiced eye. "You know how to dress them?"
"I can learn."
She snorted, but it wasn't unkind. "Come here, then. No point wasting good meat because you don't know what you're doing."
That morning, Marta taught me how to properly skin and gut a horned rabbit, her hands moving with the efficiency of long practice. She didn't ask questions or try to make small talk. She simply showed me what to do, corrected me when I fumbled, and nodded approval when I got it right.
It was the most comfortable I'd felt with another person since leaving Willocreek.
The pattern repeated itself over the following weeks. Each evening I would set my snares, learning the terrain around whatever camp we'd made, studying the signs of rabbit warrens and game trails. Each morning I would return with my catches—sometimes two rabbits, sometimes five, once a remarkable seven that had Marta shaking her head in amazement.
"You've got a knack for this," she said that morning, and I felt warmth bloom in my chest at the simple praise.
The other travelers began to notice. Master Hendricks nodded to me one morning as I passed with my kills. Carver and Finn started saving me a seat by their fire, though they still didn't talk much to me. Sera looked up from her book one evening and asked, "How do you know where to set the traps?"
I tried to explain about reading the land, about looking for the small signs that indicated rabbit territory, but the words came out clumsy and uncertain. Still, she listened, and when I finished she said, "That's actually quite clever," before returning to her reading.
It wasn't friendship, exactly. But it was something.
We reached the city of Crossroads eighteen days into the journey. It was the first real city I'd ever seen—not a town like Willocreek or even Millford, but an actual city with walls and guard towers and streets that twisted in confusing patterns. The coach deposited us at a large inn called the Wayward Merchant, and I found myself sharing a room with Sera and two other women who'd joined our group at various points along the road.
That night, lying in an unfamiliar bed and listening to the sounds of the city outside, I felt the weight of my isolation more keenly than ever. The other women chatted quietly among themselves, sharing stories and laughter. I wanted to join in, wanted to be part of that easy camaraderie, but I didn't know how to bridge the gap between us.
So instead I lay silent, one hand resting on John Maxima's sword beside my bed, and told myself that it didn't matter. I was going to Thornhaven to become an adventurer, not to make friends.
The thought felt hollow even as I tried to believe it.
The next morning, I woke before dawn and slipped out to check the traps I'd set in the scrubland outside the city walls. The familiar routine soothed my restless thoughts. Here, in the quiet darkness with only the wind and the distant calls of night birds, I didn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing or being too awkward. I could just be Jane, the girl who knew how to read the land and set a good snare.
I found four rabbits waiting, and as I reset the traps I noticed something interesting. The rabbits here were larger than the ones near Willocreek, their horns more developed and their fur marked with faint patterns that almost looked like runes. I made a mental note to ask Sera about it—she might know if it was related to proximity to dungeons or some other factor.
When I returned to camp, Marta was already awake and tending her fire.
"You're consistent, I'll give you that," she said, taking the rabbits. "Most people lose interest after a week or two. You've been at it every day."
"I like it," I said simply. "It's... easier than talking to people."
She barked a laugh. "Aye, I can see that. You're not much for conversation, are you?"
I felt my face heat. "I'm not very good at it."
"Good at it?" Marta shook her head as she began preparing the rabbits. "Girl, conversation isn't about being good or bad. It's just talking. You say what's on your mind, other person says what's on theirs. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. No different than setting a snare—sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don't."
"But with snares, I know what I'm doing."
"Only because you practiced." She gestured with her knife. "You think I was always good with people? I spent the first twenty years of my life barely saying two words to anyone. Then I started cooking for caravans, and I had to learn. You'll learn too, if you give yourself time."
Her words stayed with me as we continued our journey. I didn't suddenly become comfortable with the other travelers, but I started trying again. Small things, at first. Asking Sera about the rune-marked rabbits (she was delighted to explain about ambient magic saturation). Sharing my mother's honey cakes with Carver and Finn (they were surprised, but grateful). Telling Master Hendricks about the different terrain we passed through (he actually seemed interested).
It was still awkward. I still fumbled my words and said things that came out wrong. But slowly, incrementally, it became slightly less terrifying.
We joined a larger merchant caravan at the city of Riverside, thirty-two days into the journey. The caravan master, a weathered man named Torvin, eyed me skeptically when I asked if I could continue setting traps along our route.
"You any good?" he asked bluntly.
I showed him the pelts I'd been collecting, now nearly two dozen of them, carefully cleaned and rolled.
He grunted approval. "Fine. But you bring back enough for the pot, not just for profit. We feed the caravan first."
"Yes, sir."
"And if you can't keep up in the mornings, we're not waiting for you."
That became my new challenge. The larger caravan moved faster and stopped less frequently. I had to wake even earlier, run harder to check my traps and make it back before the caravan departed. More than once I found myself sprinting across open ground, rabbits bouncing against my back, lungs burning as I raced to catch up with the distant line of wagons.
But I always made it. And each time I did, I felt a little stronger, a little more capable.
The landscape changed as we traveled north and east. The forests gave way to rolling plains, then to rocky highlands where strange crystalline formations jutted from the earth like frozen lightning. We passed through cities and towns, each one larger and more impressive than the last. At each stop, new travelers joined our group while others departed, a constantly shifting community that I learned to navigate with increasing, if still imperfect, skill.
Sera left us at a city called Highmark, heading west to study at some academy. Before she departed, she pressed a small book into my hands.
"It's a basic guide to monster identification," she said. "You've got good instincts for hunting, but you should learn the theory too. Especially if you're going to be an adventurer."
I clutched the book, surprised and touched. "Thank you. I—thank you."
She smiled, and for the first time it reached her eyes. "Good luck with your ceremony, Jane. I think you'll do well."
After she left, I sat in the coach and carefully opened the book, running my fingers over the detailed illustrations of various monsters. It was a thoughtful gift, more personal than anything I'd expected from our limited interactions.
Maybe I was learning after all.
The final weeks of the journey blurred together in a rhythm of travel and hunting, conversation and silence. I grew lean and strong from the constant activity, my hands developing calluses from setting snares and my legs becoming accustomed to the long morning runs. Marta taught me more about cooking and preserving meat. Torvin showed me how to read a map properly. Even Master Hendricks, in his formal way, shared advice about navigating city bureaucracy.
I was still awkward. Still uncertain in groups. Still more comfortable in the wilderness than around people.
But I was learning.
Sixty-three days after leaving Willocreek, I woke to find the caravan stopped on a hillside overlooking a vast valley. I climbed out of my bedroll and walked to the edge of the camp, and there, spread out below us in the early morning light, was Thornhaven.
The city was enormous, larger than I'd imagined possible. Walls of white stone encircled buildings that rose in tiers toward a central district where towers of crystal and steel pierced the sky. I could see the glint of the river that ran through the city's heart, the sprawl of markets and districts, the distant shapes of what had to be the Adventurer's Guild halls.
Somewhere in that vast city, I would undergo the System ceremony. I would receive my class. I would begin the next chapter of my life.
I thought about the girl who'd left Willocreek two months ago—scared and uncertain, unable to talk to strangers, convinced she had to face everything alone. I was still that girl in many ways. But I was also someone who'd learned to hunt, to contribute, to slowly build connections even when it terrified me.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
I turned to find Marta standing beside me, her eyes on the distant city.
"Yes," I said quietly. "It's... it's everything I hoped for."
"You'll do fine there." She glanced at me, her expression softer than usual. "You've got grit, girl. And you're not afraid of hard work. That counts for more than you might think."
"I'm afraid of a lot of things," I admitted.
"Aye, but you do them anyway. That's what courage is." She clapped me on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's get some breakfast in you. Big day ahead."
As I followed her back to camp, I touched the pouch at my belt where I kept my collection of rabbit pelts, my earnings from two months of hunting. It wasn't much, but it was mine—proof that I could survive, that I could contribute, that I had value beyond the familiar confines of home.
The road to Thornhaven had been longer and harder than I'd expected. But as I looked down at the great city waiting below, I felt ready.
Not unafraid. Not perfectly confident.
But ready.
The journey had taught me that much, at least.