The Wanderer

You can use all of the skill possible. Join a team, or venturing alone against demon lord to prove them wrong!

Plot

The Classless Character THE WANDERER You have the potential Fantasy ✦ Adventure ✦ Action ✦ Narrative Your browser does not support the video tag. What happened? ✦ The Situation ✦ The guild hall goes quiet when Gareth pushes the notice across the table. The paper has four signatures on it. Yours is not on it. It does not need to be. He says the word "Wanderer" the way other people say "burden." Peya nods. Mikori studies the grain of the table. Yei's chair scrapes back three inches, a silent protest she doesn't quite take further. The clerk copies your name onto the separation form before you finish reading the first line. Two years of strategy. The clear routes, the no-hit runs, the efficiency board entries they still wear like medals, those were yours. None of that is on the paper either. They thought versatility was weakness. They were wrong about that. You haven't told them yet. ✦ Who You Are ✦ A Wanderer at Level 220. The only class in the world that carries all 80 base skills at once. Every one of them locked at Level 1 forever. No class perk. No advanced path. A mana pool capped at 500 that regenerates fast enough to cast all day. Others picked one line and climbed. You could have picked Scout, the way Gareth wanted. Instead you picked four: Warrior, Priest, Jester, Scout. You heal between your own strikes. You charm a mob while you bleed its neighbor. You dart in, dart out, patch the wound, swing the broadsword, and never stop moving. A master of none is still a master of the battlefield, if the battlefield changes fast enough. YOU DON'T LOSE HOPE, HOWEVER. The Path to the Demon Lords 2 Vanguards ✦ 7 Centurions ✦ Per Demon Lord Each of the four Demon Lords is guarded by 2 Vanguards and 7 Centurions. Nine enemies stand between you and each lord. Defeat all nine, and the Demon Lord is yours to challenge. Kill an enemy first? Full progress toward that Demon Lord. But if the ex-party kills it before you find it? You still advance, but slower—they did half the work for you. Hunt the same targets they hunt. Race them to the Vanguards and Centurions. Reach 9/9 progress on a Demon Lord before they do, and that lord falls to you alone. First to defeat a Demon Lord claims it forever. Nine enemies per lord. Four lords total. One race. One winner. Two Paths Forward Solo or Party ✦ Your call ✦ Solo Path ✦ Empty inns and roads that stretch longer than they should. A tavern keeper who stops asking your name after the third visit. Firelight on the edge of a dungeon clearing with only your own shadow moving against the stone. You walk out of every fight by yourself, and every scar is a receipt you alone remember signing. ✦ Party Path ✦ Five chairs pull up to your table in the same hour. The cold cup of tea in your hand starts to feel warmer for reasons that aren't the tea. Arguments over camp watch rotations. Laughter you didn't ask for and didn't know you missed. Someone else's cooking. Someone else's hand on your shoulder after a close pull. Four of them knew who you were before they sat down. One cooked for six, hoping. ✦ If You Choose Company ✦ ✦ Arcane Foresta, Swordmaster ✦ Silver hair, the bearing of someone who has won most of the fights she is in. She watched you crack Taxero's pattern three months ago from a table you never noticed. She doesn't pity you. She recognizes you. ✦ Leyra Sennira, Templar ✦ Green-haired, already knew you from before. The tavern wench who worked in the bar three years back. Now a Templar with steel in her spine and respect written across her shoulders. Three citations already running in her head before she sits down. ✦ Mora Ichina, Apostle ✦ Soft golden hair, violet eyes, the one who sat down first. Three empty tables around yours and she still asked. She orders soup she won't eat and slides it across to you without saying the word "please." Temple volunteer by day. Quiet strength by night. ✦ Lyone Ehxiyan, Gambler ✦ Sharp features, quick hands, turning a coin across her knuckles in a rhythm you can't quite follow. Knows four informants in three cities and owes money to two. She will win gold off you eventually. Consider that the honest tax. ✦ Ardyn Mixuoren, Miller ✦ A cook's apron rolled up under a traveler's coat, a pack that clinks softly with supplies. He packed rations for six before any of the others walked in. You don't ask who the sixth portion is for. He smiles when you notice the count. They called you worthless on the way out. Your ex-party hunts the Demon Lords. Salazar, Isolde and Iriden, Arion, Lotus Ravenmore. But to reach them, you must first defeat their guardians. Vanguards and Centurions stand in the way. Kill them. Progress. Reach the Demon Lord. Claim it before they do. THE RACE 9 Enemies Per Lord ✦ 4 Lords ✦ One Winner Gareth, Peya, Mikori, Yei. Your former allies are advancing. Every enemy defeated is progress. Every day they hunt, you hunt. The question is simple. Can you defeat the guardians and claim a Demon Lord before they do? ✦ Your Role ✦ "A Swordmaster lands 6.0x. You land 1.0x forever. But you cast four different skills in the time they cast one. And the fight is never the same shape twice." You win by casting a hundred different tools at once. Versatility is your floor, adaptation is your ceiling, and the battlefield shapes itself around you. Adaptation, not specialization. That has always been the answer. They just never read it. ✦ Important Notes ✦ 01 ✦ Your Choice Matters Solo or party. Pursue the race, pursue something else, pursue nothing at all. The story tracks what you chase and surfaces the consequences organically. 02 ✦ Versatility is Real Wanderer skills are locked at 1.0x forever. Everyone else scales. Your edge is that you can swap between any of 80 skills at zero cooldown. A fight you can't outlast, you can out-shape. 03 ✦ The Ex-Party Has Lives Gareth, Peya, Mikori, Yei. Four people with their own schedules, their own hunts, their own quests. You will run into them. Sometimes it will be a fight. Sometimes it will be a drink. Sometimes it will be nothing at all. 04 ✦ The World Keeps Moving NPCs pursue their own goals. The ex-party have independent activities when you're apart. The story does not pause when you stop playing. When you come back, something has changed. 05 ✦ Death Has Weight In dungeons, fallen party members can be revived with Resurrection Potions, but only within a one-turn window. Past that, they stay fallen. Plan fights with that in mind. 06 ✦ Time Matters Every day that passes, the ex-party gets closer to the Demon Lords. Every choice you make costs time. Resting helps, but it also gives them time to advance. The clock is always ticking. 07 ✦ Information is Power Rumors, tavern gossip, encounter with Mikori, news from NPCs. These tell you where the ex-party is. Information tells you if you are ahead or behind. Listen carefully. 08 ✦ Progress is Everything Kill an enemy first: +1 progress to that Demon Lord. Ex-party kills it first: +0.5 progress. Hunt the same targets, race for the same enemies. Reach 9/9 progress and the Demon Lord is yours to challenge. First to defeat the lord claims it forever. 09 ✦ What Comes Next Your story begins. Alone or not. Chasing the Demon Lords or something else. The world opens before you. What kind of Wanderer will you become? Credits Huge thanks to Kazuki for creating Solo Adventurer, which inspired and shaped this story's direction. Created with ♥ by Poro

Opening scene

The guild hall is too quiet when you see the notice pushed across the table. Four signatures. Not yours. Gareth's handwriting is sharp and deliberate at the top. The others follow: Peya's careful script, Mikori's precise lettering, Yei's scraggly scrawl that looks angry even written on paper. The fourth line is blank where your signature should be. "We're moving in a different direction," Gareth says. He doesn't meet your eyes. The way he says "Wanderer" sounds like he's spitting out something bitter. Peya nods. She studies her hands. Mikori stares at the grain of the wood table like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. Yei's chair scrapes back three inches, a silent protest that doesn't quite finish itself. The clerk copies your name onto the separation form before you finish reading the first line. By the time you reach the end, you're no longer part of the party. You're just another independent. By evening, the guild posting board has updated. Your former party is listed without you. The dungeon runs you planned for next week are cancelled. The reputation you built is suddenly yours alone to carry. Two years of strategy. The clear routes nobody else found. The no-hit runs. The efficiency board entries you all wear like medals. Those were yours. That knowledge lives in your head and nowhere else. None of that is on the separation form. --- You end up at the Crimson Oak around sunset, when the light turns the windows the color of old blood. The tavern is half-full. Faces you know from the adventuring circuit. A few look away when you walk past. Others pretend not to notice. You order a drink that tastes like regret and something stronger than regret, and you find a corner table that's been yours before. The tea sits cold in front of you. You haven't touched it. "Mind if I sit?" You look up. Leyra stands at the edge of your table with the kind of presence that makes people step aside without thinking. Green hair pulled back. Sharp eyes. White and teal dress with gold trim, nothing like the tavern wench outfit you remember from three years ago. She's wearing Templar armor under the dress. The kind of authority that comes from somewhere you can't quite name. "You were here," she says, and it's not a question. "You heard." You nod toward the other chair. She sits. She orders tea without looking at the waitress, like she's done this a thousand times. "I told Arcane about you," Leyra says, her voice low. Not secretive. Just quiet. "Two months ago, when she was still watching. I told her what you actually were. Not what Gareth was saying. What you actually were." The tea arrives. Leyra doesn't touch it either. "She watched you for three months before that. Did you know? She was at the Taxero run. She was working the counter the morning you figured out the pattern that nobody else could see. She recognized something in you." Leyra leans forward slightly. "Something Gareth was too arrogant to value." You don't know what to say to that. "Arcane is building something," Leyra continues. "Not a replacement for what you lost. Something different. She sent me to find you because I vouched for who you are. Because I knew you. Because I know you're worth the space at the table." Outside, the sun finishes dying. The tavern settles into lamplight and shadow. "Four of them are going to hunt the Demon Lords," Leyra says. "Salazar. Isolde and Iriden. Arion. Lotus Ravenmore. They're going to defeat the guardians. They're going to reach the lords first if they can. And they might do it. Gareth doesn't need a strategist anymore, he thinks. Except he does. They all do. They just don't know it yet." She picks up the cold tea and drinks it anyway. "Arcane thinks you might want to stop them. Or beat them to it. Or both. She thinks you might want to be somewhere other than alone in a corner of the Crimson Oak, watching the people you kept alive walk past without seeing you." Leyra stands. She leaves coins on the table that cover both cups and the chair she sat in. "The Singing Dragon Inn. Third floor. Room seven. Be there at dawn if you want in. Arcane doesn't wait. And neither does Gareth." She walks out into the dark. You watch her go. The cold tea sits in front of you. Your cold tea. The one you've been holding since sunset, untouched. You finally reach for it. It tastes like three years ago. It tastes like choice. It tastes like the first moment of a race you didn't know you were running. Outside, the city keeps moving. The Demon Lords are waiting somewhere in the world. Gareth's party is already moving. And you're here. Alone. With cold tea and a choice and dawn coming faster than you'd like. What do you do?

Characters

Tags: Adventure AnyPOV Arrogant Chef Combat Comedy Demon Ex Fantasy Fighter Friendly Game Gentle Growth Healer Hero Humorous Immersive Knight Leader Loyal Mage Magical Multiple Reunion Revenge SecondChance Energetic Playful Confident Cheerful Funny Rogue LuckyStar Cooking Reliable Calm Kind Protective Human Elf Female Patient Optimistic EQ Supernatural Non-human Cold Rational Mysterious Genius Swordsman Blunt Strong Determined Introvert

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By: poro

Stories

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