As the cart rumbled along the dirt path toward home, Blorbo did his best to ignore the cabbage dust coating his surface and the dread of losing that one cabbage point. He didn’t know if Opportunity Sense had done anything to boost his perception, but he felt as though he was a tiny bit better at overhearing stories against his will now.

  “So do you think he’s an actual mage?” Rob was asking.

  Of course he is! He cast an aura on me! Useless, but very real!

  “I don’t know. Why would a mage set up shop in a boring town that only sells produce?” Lena retorted as she put a finger on her chin.

  “I mean, the Mage Academy up north is supposed to be huge,” Rob replied. “It’s not that far away. Say maybe only two-day worth of horse trekking.”

  “That is an entire one thousand miles away, Rob!” She nudged him lightly on the arm. “Why are you phrasing it like that? And I heard they’re training battlemages to fight the orcs on the Northern Frontier. They should be too short-staffed to, you know, sell trinkets in a zy market. This one doesn’t even sell trinkets! He doesn’t even look to sell anything useful. He’s just weird.”

  Blorbo’s metaphorical ears locked in.

  Mages. Orcs. War. This was critical world information. He must listen.

  “Magic has existed for hundreds of years, dear,” Rob smiled. “There are mages who do all sorts of trades now. If he’s not a battlemage, there’s no reason he should have to be stuck at the Northern Frontier.”

  Lena stared at the ridiculously tiny wand between her fingers. “I guess. Maybe he couldn’t become a battlemage since his stick is too small.”

  Rob stared at her. “That’s... not how magic works, Lena.”

  Rob seemed to like the historical aspects of things, and the conversation flowed as smoothly as it would when you get a nerd to talk about the one specific thing that he was deeply interested in.

  Rob burst into a monologue, and Lena was reduced to a role of a listener.

  Nonetheless, Blorbo was showered with important world lore.

  From what Blorbo could piece together, magic had only existed for a fraction of humankind’s existence. Before that, people were entirely normal. No fireballs, lightning balls, or other reality-bending nonsense. If they wanted to kill another person, they had to pick up a yucky sword.

  Until one day, a man named Gregorwy (now titled Archgrandmaster Gregorwy) suddenly conjured a chicken out of thin air.

  That was it. That was the moment magic entered the world.

  Nobody knew how or why it happened. One minute, Gregorwy was a simple farmer about to cook dinner. The next, he had accidentally summoned a fully feathered, very confused chicken into existence. That chicken was bathed in banana and mayonnaise! It came pre-seasoned! Truly an abhorrent combination.

  Blorbo was VERY adamant that the System had something to do with the birth of magic. Only such a twisted mind could combine banana and mayonnaise.

  The town freaked out. Some people cimed it was a con, an intricate prank, others straight up denied it ever happened. Gregorwy, not fully understanding what he had done, attempted to prove it wasn’t a fluke by conjuring another chicken. And another. And another.

  By the time the town guard arrived, Gregorwy had spawned over 400 chickens and created a massive supply-demand imbance in the local vicinity.

  This event became known as “The Cluckening Awakening.”

  At first, people assumed it was just Gregorwy. Some strange, poultry-based curse. But then, others started showing signs of magic. A bcksmith accidentally melted metal with his hands. A fisherman discovered he could summon water out of thin air (but only saltwater with 3.5% salinity). A particurly dramatic bard started setting people’s hair on fire whenever he sang.

  The world was never the same again.

  “So what happened after that? Did the nobles freak out? How were they able to get these magic-wielders so organized that they’re willing to learn magic in an academy?” Lena really got into it now, grabbing and grappling the wand so fiercely as Rob’s words flowed into her ears.

  Rob gave her a cheeky grin. “I’d love to tell you more but…” He opened the wooden door to their own home. “We’re home. We have dinner to make.”

  Lena and Blorbo groaned in unison.

  But dinner was more important than bsting orcs with a wooden wand. Commoners who didn’t have magic had to provide for themselves since there weren’t many chicken-conjuring mages. In fact, mages who could conjure foodstuff were an extreme rarity, and were so revered amongst the public and schors alike that there was a separate css for them: The Chicken Mage. Bsting orcs away was not as important as solving world hunger.

  Rob quickly moved Blorbo to his rightful pce in the middle of the main room.

  Lena strolled into the kitchen, twirling the ridiculously tiny wand between her fingers. The sky had already darkened, and she would have to get to work soon, so she was hard-pressed for time.

  But there was something more hard-pressed than dinner. Magic. Real magic that could shatter reality as he knew it!

  Do it, woman! Train yourself in the arts of the arcane!

  “What am I even supposed to do with this?” Lena muttered.

  She gave it a few experimental flicks toward the air. Nothing happened.

  She pointed it at the firepce. No sudden bursts of fmes.

  She even tried waving it over an unpeeled potato like she was about to turn it into a feast. The potato remained a potato. Still unpeeled.

  Lena sighed. “Magic this, magic that. Yeah, I’ll figure this out ter.”

  And then, without an ounce of ceremony, she dropped the wand onto the kitchen table.

  Blorbo internally screamed.

  NO, NO, NO. DON’T JUST LEAVE IT THERE.

  He could already see the future.

  He knew Lena.

  If something stayed on this table, it was as good as lost.

  This was the same woman who had once mispced a whole cast-iron skillet because she left it on the table, then proceeded to cover it with a pile of vegetables, two bags of flour, and an entire stack of handwritten recipes. By the time she actually needed the skillet, she spent two days compining that someone had stolen it.

  She had lost a skillet.

  A SKILLET.

  And now, she was treating the wand the same way.

  LENA, YOU IDIOTIC CABBAGEHEAD! YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE THE WAND!

  She hummed to herself, completely unaware of the catastrophe she had just set into motion.

  NameBlorboRaceAnimated Furniture (Table)CssNoneLevel2EXP21/50HP15/15MP2 + [1]CP0STR5END16AGI18PER13SkillsAppraisal (Level 1)

  Adjustable Angle (2 Degrees)

  Opportunity Sense (Level 1)

  AuraUseless Gloved Fool (Permanent)